Career Interest, Essay Example

I am Haohao from China and am currently pursuing my undergraduate degree in Economics, with a minor in Management. One of my defining characteristics is being ‘free-spirited’ and I credit my family for this since it always encouraged me and my sister to pursue our passion and dreams. I also consider myself realistic, hence, I keep in touch with current and emerging trends to better prepare myself for the real world. I realized at quite a young age that competition in the job market will only grow over time, hence, I have been acquiring work experience at my family business every summer for about three years now.

I have always been close to my family. In addition, I barely spoke English when I came to the U.S. for my college education in 2012. Being away from the family for the first time as well as cultural shock including language difficulty made it quite a challenge to adjust in the U.S in the first year. Language problems were not limited to day-to-day living in the U.S. but were even more of an issue in courses that were only taught in English. But I also knew college education is an investment in the future and living in the U.S., which is quite a different culture from China, will teach me valuable cross-cultural skills to thrive in the real world.

In addition to spending hours studying course material, I also put in multiple efforts to improve my English language such as going to writing center, watching American movies and TV shows, reading English newspapers on daily basis, and making American friends. It took a year to improve my English language skills to a reasonable level. I am proud of this accomplishment because it showed me I can adjust in any environment and have the willingness to do whatever it takes to reach a certain goal. At times, I even had to skip fun activities with my friends because I was engaged in an activity meant to improve my English language skills.

When I first started working for my family business in China, I was assigned to the company’s HR department. I was the youngest employee in the department and I also felt a pressure to perform at high level since it was my family business and I wanted to prove myself capable. As a result, I would hesitate to ask questions if I have any and instead try to perform tasks as I would understand them. When I made mistakes, I didn’t report to anyone, out of fear of embarrassing myself. My mistakes were eventually caught due to their financial implications and I felt a sense of failure because to me, it was a sign may be I am not as good as everyone else.

Surprisingly, no one blamed me but instead advised me to learn from it and not hesitate to ask questions because everyone learns through experience and almost everyone makes mistakes in the beginning. I took the advice to heart and became more frank with asking for help when I needed it. This not only helped me minimize mistakes but also significantly improved my pace of learning because those with experience would show me the best way to tackle a particular problem. I learnt many valuable lessons which I apply whenever I work for my family business now. The first lesson was to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses and not be afraid to ask for help. The second lesson was that people are nice and want to help you improve if you show the passion towards learning and improving. The third lesson was that our actions may impact others so we should take our jobs seriously and leave nothing to chance.

Since the age of 17, I have been working at my family business every summer. I have gained experiences in a wide range of areas including HR, finance, administration, and management. The area I enjoyed most working in is HR. First of all, I gained a variety of valuable skills such as communication, leadership, and people skills. Second, I enjoy working with people and as an employee of HR, I frequently interacted with employees both within and outside the department. I believe HR function will gain importance over time because human resources are becoming more and more valuable in the age of globalization. The area I enjoyed least was administration which included the receptionist job. The job was easy but it was boring because I mostly did the same things again and again. I didn’t feel that the job challenged me or taught me anything valuable, thus, it was not very good use of my time.

These different jobs have taught me several valuable lessons. First of all, it is important to know what one likes because we either do not last long in jobs we don’t enjoy or do not perform well due to lack of commitment. I also learnt it is important to seek diverse experiences because each experience teaches us different skills which are applicable in almost every job. For example, I didn’t really enjoy working in administration department but I did learn the importance of time management there. I also have learnt many things about myself. As already mentioned, I enjoy working with people. Second, I have a passion for learning, thus, if I am weak in something I work on it. I was weak in communications and I have worked on it to improve it.

My MBTI type is ESTJ. I think this is the right type and helps explain why I enjoyed working in HR department at my family business. I like to meet people and have developed strong people skills. I see people as having feelings and can understand their emotional state. Similarly, I do focus on logic when making decisions but at the same time, I also rely on intuition and personal experiences because data is not always available or complete to make a reliable decision. This MBTI type gives me confidence I will be successful in investment banking where we frequently interact with different groups of people and rely on both facts as well as experiences.

Five years from now, I see myself as an investment banker with global operations. I may have a job either in U.S. or China but I see myself frequently travelling around the world because the whole world wants to invest in Asia, especially China, and this trend will not decline anytime soon. I see myself as still single in five years because investment banking requires serious commitment from an individual, especially in the early years and leaves him/her with little time for personal relationships. Thus, I may not go for romantic relationship until I have established myself. Now my goal is to secure a job but in five years, my goals will be to learn as much as possible so that I have access to many advancement opportunities.

I see my office in a downtown area in one of the major financial centers in the world such as New York, Shanghai, or Hong Kong. The work environment will be fast paced and high-pressured since I may even be working on projects involving hundreds of millions of dollars. My responsibilities will include understanding clients and their business, financial analysis, market analysis and economic analysis among other things. I see myself working for a big multinational financial institution, with operations in many countries. I, specifically, want to choose a big company so that I work on challenging projects and learn a lot.

The most important factor that will influence my career choices will be learning opportunities. I will also be focused on advancement opportunities. I may have very busy life and may not yet be pursuing any romantic relationship but I will meet my family at least twice a year in case I am working abroad. If I am in China, I may see them more often. I would love to see my family every week but I understand investment banking is not an easy profession and I may have to make considerable sacrifices during the early years. High salary is desirable but salary would not be the most important factor for as long as there are tremendous learning opportunities.

After completing my undergraduate degree, I will gain work experience in investment banking. I plan to return to graduate school and may study accounting or statistic to diversify my skills. Accounting and statistic have wide applications in investment banking but even if my investment banking career path doesn’t work out, there are many career opportunities for accounting and statistic professionals in both financial and other industries.

Some of the information that will help me making career decisions are current and future trends, job growth in particular industries, and advancement opportunities. I will gather information through a wide variety of sources such as college career center, internet, professional networking with recruiters and industry insiders, and college alumni network.