Category: Management

Categories
Management

University Internship Search Guide (Tips from 3 MNC Experiences)

Slide Covers university internships

Hello everyone! It’s me again. I understood from a few of my NTU NBS juniors that first year students are now required to do a compulsory internship as part of their curriculum. I am sure many of the other universities will start to have this requirement in place, and even if there is none, I definitely encourage you to think of how you can make full use of your time.

I did not have a year 1 Summer Internship unlike many of my peers so if you are reading this and did not manage to secure an internship in your first year, you are not alone! Here are some steps which you can take to find your internship.

1. Have a Good Resume or Portfolio with Unique Value Proposition

The first thing you need is your job hunt apparatus — your resume. I heard of many formats in the resume which may or may not work, but personally when I was looking for internships and my graduate job, I used the one page resume format. Some key parts to include is Education, Skills (Especially when you have no work experience), Work Experience, Projects, Co-curricular Leadership and Achievements.

However, the key focus is not on the format, but how your resume tells a story. Personally, I took a Business Analytics and Entrepreneurship Undergraduate Degree with an intention to apply these skills in management. Having the technical skills on my resume without work experience helped me in getting my resume spotted by the hiring manager for a Regional Talent Management role at my first internship company, Schaeffler, a German MNC operating in the Automotive industry. As for my other internships, I believe that most of my interviewers also looked at my co-curricular leadership as well as achievements in making the holistic decision to shortlist my resume for interview. One way to do it is to focus on what is transferrable to the job. With a business analytics degree, I am well-positioned to join almost any business function of any sector since it is a very broad and general degree with the technical power to do wonders in many functions and sectors.

If you need some reference, I recently ported most of my resume to my own portfolio site. If you need help refining your resume, do drop me a note in the comments section below or reach me through my LinkedIn! Do let me know you reached me through this blogpost!

2. Prepare a Good Cover Letter Format

In all honesty, when I found my first internship, I did not use a cover letter. However, I found out that after hunting for my subsequent internships and full time job, I had a higher rate of success whenever I included a cover letter in my applications. So please prepare a cover letter.

Each cover letter should be in a specific format which the recruiter wants to see. It is not merely sharing about your value proposition, but about how your value proposition aligns with the job description provided by the employer.

The general rule of thumb I have when writing a cover letter is to write it accordingly to the job description. This will do your recruiters a great favour when they comb through the many job applications for the particular role.

Same as before if you need assistance, do drop me a note in the comments or LinkedIn!

3. Utilise the resources you have in the Job Hunt

For starters, here are some resources which you can use during your job hunt:

A. Career Services Office(s) in your University

In Singapore, most local universities have a dedicated career office. Some like NBS has an extra one in the school for dual job search prospects! These career offices have dedicated career coaches and advisors who can help you with your career planning as well as internship search. Do reach out to them early!

The career services offices in my alma-mater also have exclusive job portals, CareerAxis and CareerFit for NTU and NBS respectively to help students with their internship and full-time positions.

B. Job Portals

To gain more possible avenues for internships and jobs, especially from the hiring freezes due to COVID-19, you could try job search portals too!

I have previously consolidated a list of useful job portals which could be used over on my LinkedIn post!

C. Professional and Personal Network

Another way to find an internship is through professional and personal networks. You could create a LinkedIn profile to reach many professionals who would love to connect with students and might even offer a role!

Some students have managed to secure internships through their professors, family members or friends.

If you love this post so far and want to connect with me, here’s my LinkedIn Profile!

4. Rehearse for Your Interviews

Forget those memorised long model answers for all the possible questions. From my internship and job hunt experience, the key questions a recruiter wants to know are these:

A. Is the candidate interested enough?

This is through your research about the company, their key achievements, how you want to grow while taking up the internship roles. Do prepare some questions which show your interest in the industry as well as proper research about the company.

B. Is the candidate able to do the job?

This part looks at your past experiences, how these experiences could help you with the role you are applying for. You might want to try learning the STAR and CAR approaches to tackling these types of questions when they are posed.

C. Does the candidate fit in?

For this, just be yourself. Do not try to be someone you aren’t. Many recruiters and hiring managers can tell if you are faking it. Even if you made it through, personality and cultural mismatch may be a potential cause for a less than ideal experience. Therefore, be as genuine as you can! Basically, most questions which don’t fit the first two belong here! (E.g. What’s a superpower you want to have, what is your favourite hobby, etc.)

5. Do Start Early

There is a saying that the early bird catches the worm. This is also true when you search for an internship. Some companies love to confirm their head-counts earlier as internship hiring may be just a small part of what they need to do. Therefore, do start early!

Hope that this helps with your internship hunt! Do let me know down in the comments below if you have other ways to hunt for an internship as well as you want to learn next!

Hope you liked our story today. Do bookmark this site, leave a comment in the section below, and follow us on our LinkedIn page as we look forward to curating new content for you!

Got your internship and want to make it a memorable experience? Here are some rules that I follow!

Tracking your web traffic? This post on Google Analytics may give you some business insights.

Working from home during this period? Here are some key takeaways from my in-office turned work-from-home internship.

If you are looking at acquiring some technical skills to stand out, try reading these selection guides for Business Analytics Modules or for General electives!

Image Credits: Photo by Peter Nguyen on Unsplash
Original Post Date: 27 Jul 2020

Categories
Analytics Management University

3 Reasons Why I Make it a Point to Contribute back to University

Why I make it a point to contribute back as an alumni, me at NBS Admissions Fireside Chat

Recently, I attended Nanyang Business School’s Fireside Chat for newly admitted students as an Alumni Co-host in the Business Analytics breakout room. This was my third event at Nanyang Technological University ever since I graduated. It felt like I was transported back to the time when I was selecting which university to head to five years ago, having to make an informed choice to cap off my years of formal education.

The post today is about 3 reasons why you should contribute back to the university community after graduation, be it through events, content writing (what I’m doing too), and mentorship. As a business graduate is always a win-win for everyone, and while the listeners gain, I feel I gain a lot as a speaker too!

#1 Being Able to Learn New Perspectives

I realised that one of the benefits to return to my alma mater to do sharings is that I can learn many new perspectives. I came to realise that people of different generations and backgrounds think very differently. I learned about the thought process which goes through the current student’s mind as they look at the next steps of their journey. One question which got me thinking was when thinking about Co-curricular Activities (CCAs) to join, which would be the most helpful in the business context, which of course I responded that there is no hard and fast rule and you are the master of your own ship. However, that did set me thinking of how much forward-thinking the next batch of students seen to be… Or perhaps I’m the only one who had not thought so far ahead when choosing a course, I knew I wanted to run a business and add value to society, which I did run one during my university days!

If you would like to learn about my perspective of university life, do read my graduation reflection post.

#2 Honing Listening and Public Speaking Skills

Another benefit of attending alumni events was honing my listening and public speaking skills. Being placed in a room of eager-eyed prospective students who ask any questions which you can possibly imagine, I found it interesting to have had the chance to thoughtfully formulate original answers to a new audience confidently over time! Over till my third event, I felt that I am improving in terms of my public speaking skills, experimenting with the various ways that I can potentially use to bring a message across.

I remember that back during my days as a Toastmaster, I hear that public speaking is the biggest fear of most people, of which I say yes I’m still fearful that I may make a mistake, but being able to articulate your thoughts clearly is a very important skill that I’m consistently improving on!

#3 Critical Reflection of Your Experiences

I felt that attending an Alumni event was also a chance to critically reflect on my experience. Through the various engagements I had about university life, internships, exchange and curriculum, I had the chance to narrate the experience I had and in the process realise how much of a transformative experience I went through.

One of the experiences I got asked about was whether I was already decided on Business Analytics when I entered university, and I responded that it was an informed choice between two majors, Business Analytics and Marketing.

Another experience was about the Stars Wars in university, which basically means course registration, it was ironic though when I responded that I hardly faced any issues, but when there’s an issue, there was a member in the undergraduate office team to assist, who coincidentally was the moderator in the room!

Thus, these back to school experiences I had removed any Halo effect or contrast effect of one’s experience and allowed me to objectively reflect.

Hope you liked our post today. Do bookmark this site, leave a comment in the section below, and follow us on our LinkedIn page as we look forward to curating new content for you every week.

Thinking of heading to university but can’t get decided? Do read our analysis of the Graduate Employment Survey 2020 here!

Photo Credits: Screenshot with Virtual Background designed by Nanyang Business School

Categories
Management

Time Management: 5 Ways How I Stay Productive at Work

Trello Dashboard

Time Management. An ironic topic to get back into my posting cadence after skipping a week. (Thanks for staying tuned to my blog!)

Over most of April, I had the opportunity to take on a different type of work (Project Management) which resulted in a lot of my schedule being spiralled off course. Last time this happened was in January, when I was doing my MiniMasters Classes while juggling with a big project at work. This post would not be a recount of that experience, which will be for another day when I fully see through the project. Here are some of my tried and tested secrets to staying productive at work:

1. Effective Calendar Management (Compartmentalising)

Firstly, let us begin with a tool which is commonly available to most of us while at work. It is called a work calendar. I tend to schedule most of my required meetings for the week, as well as any potential work preparation I would need for the meeting into the calendar. By doing so, I am able to set fixed timings in each week completing what I have set out to do. Blocking time on the calendar signals to the audience that there is limited time in the day, ensuring that my meetings stay succinct, and I would have time to complete my other to-dos.

When collaborating with multiple colleagues on a project, I would sometimes also block additional calendar time for myself especially when I know that there might be multiple rounds of discussion which may not have been set out in the diary. This way, I would not be thrown off guard and be left firefighting, which disrupts the productivity of other tasks in the day.

2. Setting Up a Dashboard of Items (Kanban)

Secondly, setting a dashboard of items, also known as Kanban, is a place where you can stay up to date with your deliverables, or even your team’s deliverables (I didn’t have a chance to do this at work yet).

Personally, I use Trello (Not Sponsored), where a Kanban Template lets me place everything in boards, cards and checkboxes, creating a directory cum to-do list of sort. I do this board not only for work, but also for my own weekend planning too. As a bonus, this well separates work and life, as each aspect is clearly documented for when it is time for which.

3. Prioritising (Eisenhower Matrix)

You may have heard the saying that goes, “There is no end to work, once you have no work left there is no need for you anymore.” When faced with mountains of work, the Eisenhower Matrix is one way to look at prioritising. Is the task urgent? Is the task important? If both checks out, do it immediately! If it’s urgent but not important, if it’s not too much of a hassle, just help, otherwise delegate to someone else who believes that it is important. If it’s important but not urgent, put it on calendar (back to tip 1) and ensure that you set time for it. If it is neither important or urgent, you can always delegate or just leave it there, perhaps automating the process for the long run using various techniques, for instance ETL or RPA.

In one of my recent reflections, I found prioritising especially important when I was juggling between work and study. While I’m finished with the extra studies for now, I learned that I need to stay mission oriented and prioritise according to what would be important for me.

4. Start of Day and End of Day Routine Planning and Reflection and stick to it.

While not having diligently stuck to it sometimes, I tend to make it a point for the first and last 30 minutes of the day to be planning out the day and what I intend to complete, as well as reflecting on the day, what went wrong, how I can do something more effectively.

As the saying goes, “when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Each day should start with identifying the goals which needs to be achieved for the day, as well as how much time there is. This way, time can be effectively allocated (through calendar) to different levels of priority. That said, things may go wrong sometimes, for instance ad-hoc tasks assigned by your managers.

Sticking to the plans as much as possible will ensure that we stay mission oriented and focused.

5. Getting Ample Rest

This might sound counter intuitive, as spending more time doing more work means being more productive right?

Productivity is the measure of output over a given time. Just because you are spending more time doing work does not mean that you are productive.

Most humans require at least 8 hours of sleep a day, not trying to be a science teacher here but it is something about the brain needing to reorganise thoughts and reinforce learnings. Surprise, I usually try to sleep for at least 8 hours before my exams at university, and I do quite decently I must say! Anecdotally, this is a tried and proven method for me to be productive.

Hope you liked our story today. Do bookmark this site, leave a comment in the section below, and follow us on our LinkedIn page as we look forward to curating new content for you every week.

If you liked this post, here are some work rules that I like to stick to.

Photo Credits: Original Image by Tan Wei Xiang

Categories
Innovation Management

Innovation: Business Model Canvas vs Strategic Business Functions

Business Model Canvas vs Strategic Business Functions

If you had been following our Innovation posts where we use the business model canvas to breakdown businesses, you might have always wondered how the business model canvas for a lean business scales up to that of a full business. We also had that question so we decided to explore linking the business model canvas to various business functions, in order for us to fully comprehend what it means.

Business Model Canvas
Business Model Canvas obtained from Quantic

Value Proposition

The value proposition is considered the most top level summary of what the business is. Therefore, this should be under the Chief Executive Officer, or the Business Strategy Department. While the Marketing team also would have a say in this, the value proposition is the heart of the business just like how the Chief Executive and Business Strategy brings everything together.

Customer Segments

In a corporate business, segmentation should be jointly owned by the Marketing Department, Consumer Insights Department, as well as Business Strategy Department, as there is a high level view of the customer and certain decisions would have to be made on the specific customer segments to target.

Customer Relationships

For customer relationships, the high level view would be driven by the Marketing Communications Department, as it would maintain the general relationship with the customer.

To target specific customers, the Sales Department would be the primary team developing these personal relationships.

Channels

Channel selection should be done by the marketing department, in order to achieve the broad go-to-market objectives of the company.

The execution of channels would usually be done by the Supply Chain Department and Operations Department, depending on the mix of channels chosen.

However, in this age, there is also online channels available. This is when the Digital Marketing Department arises to manage these channels.

Key Partners

Away from the external facing functions, key partners would usually be managed by the Corporate Communications Team, who consistently keep partners engaged. In businesses without a dedicated Corporate Communications Team, the Business Strategy Team should own this function.

The Sales/Procurement department might also be the right team to engage these key partners depending on whichever side the company is on.

Key Resources

For key resources, there is a variety of functions which govern this.

For human capital and labour, the Human Resources Department is definitely the one in charge.

For resources related to technology and infrastructure, we have the Information Technology Department in charge.

For financial-related resources, we have the Finance Department in charge and if there is no Real Estate department, the Finance Department also owns the aspect of leasing and ownership of commercial space.

Key Activities

The key activities will likely vary based on the business which is in question. While key activities should be carried out by the Operations Department, organisations are becoming more decentralised and constantly spreads out the key activities across various departments.

Cost Structure

The cost structure of the organisation should be helmed by the Finance Department, but as a partner to the various departments. Everyone plays a part in the cost structure but the owner of the costs should be finance.

Revenue Streams

The revenue streams usually stems from the pricing strategy as well as opportunity identification and the Business Strategy Department should clearly be in charge. The Finance Department can track the revenue streams to manage the profit and loss of the company, however the onus is on the Business Strategy Department to consistently look for new opportunities to increase the revenue streams.

How Many Teams Should There Be?

While you first start a business, you may find yourself doing everything, you might eventually want to scale up and see which functions are required by the business. As a general guide as covered, these are the functions in a business:

  1. Chief Executive Office + Business Strategy (To plan for the business.)
  2. Marketing + Consumer Insights + Sales (To manage customer-facing aspects of the business.)
  3. Supply Chain + Operations + Procurement (To run the external operations of the business.)
  4. Finance + Human Resources + Information Technology (To enable the internal operations of the business.)

While the functions can be combined in other ways too, the key is to understand your evolving business needs, as well as the skills of your team to ensure that your business runs smoothly.

Now that you have read the breakdown of how each department comes together in the business model canvas, are you more intrigued to run your own business in the future? Let us know in the comments below!

Are you interested in exploring business ideas? Please drop us a note at businessmodel@tanweixiang.com.

If you liked reading about this post, do follow us on our LinkedIn Page. You may like to build your own hair salon, photo studio, bakery or ramen restaurant.

Image Credits: Photo by Raspopova Marina on Unsplash
Artwork Designed by Tan Wei Xiang

Categories
Management Marketing

Review: Nanyang Business School Mini Masters in Marketing Management

Mini Masters in Marketing Management

It’s been a while since I last written about course reviews. If you had been following the story, for various reasons, I had decided to enrol back into Nanyang Business School to pursue a Mini Masters in Marketing Management. 5 months of hard work since November last year has finally come to a close! Here’s my course review of each of the modules:

CET016 Marketing Principles & Strategies

This module provides the basics to Marketing Strategy, and also adds a deeper level of understanding. For the students who did Business at Nanyang Technological University, this is the equivalent of AB1501 Marketing, with some elements of BE2502 Innovation Marketing. Content-wise, it is considered rather heavy, however those with basic marketing knowledge should be able to keep up, and also get excited by new concepts introduced.

In general, I enjoyed the classes taught by Dr Lim Boon Chong and Prof Hooi Den Huan. The professors were really helpful in answering queries as well as facilitating the class.

In terms of course load, this is a 4au course. For those unfamiliar with the academic unit system at NTU, 1au is the equivalent of 13 classroom hours, which means 52 classroom hours is used. There was a mix of self-paced learning (22h) and in-class learning (30h), some of which was done through zoom due to the safe distancing measures in Singapore. However, I felt that the actual time and effort put into the course is heavier than expected.

The method of assessment is a 30% MCQ Quiz, a 30% Marketing Written Report, and a 40% Final Written Test.

CET017 Marketing Research

This module provides knowledge for conducting quantitative and qualitative research, I believe there was also some elements on consumer behaviour involved as well. For the students who did Marketing at Nanyang Business School, I believe it corresponds to BM2502 Market Research, with some knowledge from BM2501 Market Behaviour. The content was straightforward to understand, and a marketing manager from Irvin’s salted egg was invited to the session to share about his experience with marketing for Irvin’s.

The profs were very knowledgeable in their lines of teaching. Prof Julien Cayla is an ethnographer by training and he is really good at teaching semiotics, one of the way to carry out qualitative research. Prof Thomas allard was very knowledgeable on the quantitative research aspect, and also invited a speaker to share about quantitative research techniques.

In terms of course load, this is also a 4au course. There was a mix of self-paced learning (22h) and in-class learning (30h), all of which some learning was done through zoom due to the safe distancing measures in Singapore. I felt that it was the right workload for a 4au module.

The method of assessment is 10% Participation, 25% Reflection on Qualitative Research, 25% Reflection on Quantitative Research, 40% Group Brand Audit.

Besides this, I also managed to apply my knowledge in real life, do check my post on quantitative survey fielding here!

CET018 Branding

This module provides knowledge on branding done by a company, topics of which include brand identity, brand transgressions. The course also looks into different types of context of branding, for instance, luxury branding and international branding. I believe that this would correspond to the undergraduate course of BM3506 Strategic Brand Management.

Prof Caleb Tse and Prof Sharon Ng were very knowledgeable and understanding. Knowing that many of us are studying part-time while having full time work, they condensed the workload to a lot of the assessments being done in class, which really helped as I was very busy with a Branding project at work that month. Also, managed to get some brand strategy tips from Prof Caleb, who was really willing to help when I reached out to him via email.

In terms of course load, this is also a 4au course. There was a mix of self-paced learning (22h) and in-class learning (30h), all of which some learning was done through zoom due to the safe distancing measures in Singapore. I felt that the workload itself was more of a 3au course, but the complexities of the course certainly required a deeper understanding of marketing in order to fully appreciate.

The method of assessment was 40% through 4 online quizzes, 30% through two in-class group cases and 30% for a final short essay exam.

CET019 Digital Marketing

This module introduces us to the concept of digitisation, and how the marketing environment has changed in the world of digitisation. We were given the opportunity to also take on some certifications as part of the course assessment, and were taught of the various digital tools available for a digital marketer to work with. I believe that this would correspond to BM2506 Digital Marketing, with a lessened assessment load.

Dr Boey Yew Tung and Dr Wong King Yin managed to share a lot and let us understand more about digital marketing through various cases, where we can assess metrics like conversion rate, as well as measuring marketing effectiveness. I managed to also get some tips about how to improve my blog content and SEO techniques, which I hope to see results coming in and looking forward to doing a new sharing if it works out! (Yes! I changed the colour scheme of my blog because of something I found out during class.)

In terms of course load, this is a 3au course. There was a mix of self-paced learning (9h) and in-class learning (30h), some of which was done through zoom due to the safe distancing measures in Singapore. I felt that the workload matches that of a 3au course, however, the content does get a bit technical at times and it might be tough for people from a non-technical background to follow with the class.

The method of assessment is 15% Google Analytics Certification, 15% Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certification, 30% Reflection Report and 40% Final MCQ Quiz.

Final Words

Overall, I am thankful that I have embarked on this opportunity to further understand marketing, and believe that the knowledge will be useful for me in my career in the long run! I hope that this article is useful to you just like it has been a great reflective journey for me.

Thank you to NTU for the free Alumni Credits for 2020 graduates. I hope to put the knowledge attained to good use in future!

If you liked this page, do bookmark this site, or follow us on our LinkedIn page.

If you are interested in finding out more on my reflections on working and studying at the same time, do read this post!

If you are an undergraduate or graduate student deciding between marketing and analytics, do read my comparison of these two specialisations.

Photo Credits: Original Artwork by Tan Wei Xiang