No Change to the HBS Application Essay

Last week, Dee  Leopold,  Harvard Business School’s Admissions Director, made three important announcements regarding the HBS MBA application for the class entering in August 2015. First, the optional essay question, or as Leopold refers to it, â€Å"the (optional) ‘essay’ question.† The question for the 2015 application will be: â€Å"You’re applying to Harvard Business School. We can see your resume, academic transcripts, extracurricular activities, awards, post-MBA career intentions, test scores, and what your recommenders have to say about you. What else would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy?† She then advices applicants: â€Å"Use your judgment as to how much to tell us. We dont have a ‘right answer’ or ’correct length’ in mind. We review all the elements of your written application to decide who moves forward to the interview stage.† As mentioned, this is the same question as last year. The plan was that every year Harvard would come up with a new optional question, but apparently, the adcom liked it so much, they backed out of the original plan and decided to keep the question. Second, in her blog post (which you can see in full here), Leopold also provides a sneak peek at the recommender questions, which are as follows: †¢ How do the candidates performance, potential, background, or personal qualities compare to those of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? Please provide specific examples. (300 words) †¢ Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicants response. (250 words) And finally, about the deadlines: †¢Ã‚  Round 1 deadline: September 9, 2014. This is approximately one week earlier than last year’s deadline and probably the earliest ever for Harvard’s round 1 due date. †¢Ã‚  Interviews (invite only): Mid-October through November †¢Ã‚  Notifications: Around December 10, 2014, also earlier than in previous years. The earlier response means that you will have more time to prepare round 2 applications, if you aren’t accepted. (It also means that the admissions committee will have more time to enjoy the holiday season.) Not sure how to tackle the HBS application? Don’t worry – as soon as the entire application is released (in mid-June), we’ll walk you through it with an updated tips post. In the meantime, here’s some advice based on last year’s HBS application: Harvard Business School 2014 MBA Essay Questions Tips. Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

A Tempest By William Shakespeare - 1263 Words

In Cà ©saire’s A Tempest one of the main characters, Prospero, decides to remain on the island with Caliban and live out the rest of his life there. He remains there because he thinks the island needs him to be its ruler. As time continues, we see the deterioration of his mind and body. He becomes feeble and weak. He appears to see opossums overrunning the island and he attacks them to protect civilization. Prospero seems to be hallucinating, and because of this can be seen as a crazy old man who has reached the end of his life. However, in this paper, I will argue that the opossums and other things he experiences aren’t just hallucinations he creates from being in a weakened state, but actually the realization of what he s done in the†¦show more content†¦He despises opossums, as he sees them as a creature â€Å"that pulls itself up by its own tail, the better to bite the hand that tears it from the darkness†, and he precedes to go on a wild spree shoo ting a gun in all directions. He claims to do so to â€Å"protect civilization† and that he cannot let his work perish. To him, the climate seems to have changed as well, as he claims it feels cold. It’s obvious that his old age plays some part in why he feels so drained and disoriented. However, despite slowly dying, he still tries to maintain control over the island and over Caliban. In his younger years, Prospero hated the fact that Caliban wanted to be free, and he actually even compared him to an opossum earlier in the final scene. He hated nature and music and the thought of people being able to run their own lives. To combat the things that he hated, he tortured and enslaved both Caliban and Ariel, and kept them from being happy. He didn’t believe the island would survive on its own, and he felt the need to be in control of everything. He never granted Caliban freedom, and even in his old age he believed that he could still control him. Because of his age , the past, and his state of mind, it’s possible that it is his subconscious dragging up his hidden fears and guilt in the form of opossums, creatures and the changing climate. Prospero’s deepest fears seem to be that of a loss of control, and of allowing others to have their own freedoms. He is

Leadership Skills For A Successful Homeland Security...

Exceptional leadership skills are compulsory for a successful Homeland Security workforce. Leadership has repeatedly shown to influence employee morale, productivity, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, stress and resilience (Committee on the Department of Homeland Security Workforce, 2013). Alternatively, poor leadership leads to increased stressors in the workplace (Kelloway et al., 2005). One can develop leadership skills by reflecting on past experiences, and differentiating instances which yielded both positive and negative outcomes. Over the discourse of this paper, leadership experiences in which I have encountered will be examined. For background, next year will be my tenth year working for the same DoD defense†¦show more content†¦To those with families, and other commitments, this could be challenging. It would have been helpful to us, if Leader 1 took the minimal leadership tasks seriously; for instance, performance appraisals. One cannot improve, i f they lack awareness of weaknesses. Performance appraisals, one of the few one-on-one times we had with Leader 1, was more or less just a check in the box. As long as the department work was getting done, in Leader 1’s eyes you were doing a fine job. There were no observations of areas which could use improvement. Given none of us are perfect and all happen to be mid-level employees, I found this to be a great disservice. Moreover, areas in which we thrived were merely glossed over without any recognition. Then there’s the day-to-day work week. Generally, we performed the same work functions without trying to throw a wrench in things (or in other words, create more work for the team). The monotony and redundancy became an issue for me. When we worked on unique team projects, it usually required collaboration with other departments in the organization. Leader 1’s, â€Å"do no little or no more than required attitude† would transfer to these proj ects as well, pitting us as the group that no one really wanted to work with. Despite Leader 1’s less than desirable leadership skills, he is revered by his peers as a subject matterShow MoreRelatedThe Vision Of The Department Of Homeland Security1611 Words   |  7 PagesChange in strategy The vision of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is â€Å"to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards† (United States Department of Homeland Security, 2015). To achieve this vision, DHS has developed five core missions these are, â€Å"to prevent terrorism and enhance security, to secure and manage US borders, to ensure and administer immigration laws, to safeguard and secure cyberspace, and to ensure resilience to disasters.† ToRead MoreImproving The International Hiring Process1370 Words   |  6 Pagescompensation benefits. 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One approach foregoes a designated leader and enables team members to reach an objective collectively, whereas the differingRead MoreBad Leadership And The Us Border Patrol1861 Words   |  8 PagesABSTRACT Why does bad leadership exist? Bad leadership indeed exists in the US Border Patrol is a question that I have wondered about for many years. What has been done to fix the problem and if any programs have been created to develop good and efficient leaders for the future. This paper sought a definition of bad leadership, and compiled a taxonomy of eighteen types of poor leaders. This research serves as a review of poor leadership in the US Border Patrol. Why does it exists, why it is toleratedRead MoreMy Mission Of A Leader2643 Words   |  11 Pagesproviding the highest quality of security and leadership inside and outside of the institution. I will provide the highest quality of customer service to all internal and external customers. My vision is to help my superiors and subordinates to become trained and educated by sharing the experience and knowledge that I have gained throughout my career. As a supervisor, I will continue to seek training, experience and education in order to accomplish this vision. Leadership Theory I find that becauseRead MoreDeveloping Countries Supporting Afghanistan As A Developing Country1442 Words   |  6 Pagesassistance; Central and South Asia was endowed with more than double that, at fifteen billion dollars. Considering Afghanistan, than it has received a bulk of approximately thirteen billion in aid from which $9.95 billion was spent on military and security assistance to train and arm Afghan police forces and military. In 1960, World Bank realized the needs of Afghanistan; it developed the Aid-to-Afghanistan Consortium where all the principle providers of money had a meeting to discuss about the assistanceRead MoreAfghanistan Is A Developing Country1468 Words   |  6 Pagesassistance; Central and South Asia was endowed with more than double that, at fifteen billion dollars. Considering Afghanistan, than it has received a bulk of approximately thirteen billion in aid from which $9.95 billion was spent on military and security assistance to train and arm Afghan police forces and military. In 1960, World Bank realized the needs of Afghanistan; it developed the Aid-to-Afghanistan Consortium where all the principle providers of money had a meeting to discuss about the assistance

HR Planning & Recruitment in Labour Market-Samples for Students

Question: Identify and discuss HR planning and recruitment in a particular sector of the labour market. Answer: Introduction The workforce planning is considered as an important job of the human resource professionals and it determines the success of an organization. The recruitment process determines the quality of manpower in an organization, which implies the level of organizational success (De Bruecker et al., 2015). The HR planning can be considered as a fully integrated operational process which is done to avoid any shortage of skilled manpower.. This would enable the concerned HR to make appropriate planning decisions which would benefit the organization in the long run (Squires et al., 2017). The selected organization for this study is Wesfarmer Supermarket and the concerned industry is the retail industry. The thesis statement of this research is to determine the planning as well as recruiting functions of the human resources for the retail industry of Australia. The main objective of the report is to explore the different factors behind HR planning and the formulation of HR strategies. The different challenges in the process of HR planning and the formulation of recruitment strategies would be determined in this report. HR planning in Australia (Concerning retail sector) The retail industry has witnessed a major growth in the past few years. There has been a phenomenal increase of the e-commerce, which has posed stiff competition for the brick and mortar stores (Gharibi Yamchi et al., 2016). There has been a steep increase in the job role of merchandisers in the retail sector, which have increased by over 17% in the last few years (Seek.com.au, 2017). They look at the strategic aspect of the business and observe the movement of the stocks closely in the store (De Bruecker et al., 2015). There has been a sharp increase in the planning job roles in the retail industry (Seek.com.au, 2017). They act as a liaison between purchasing department and the finance department. There has been more focus on the cultural fit of the employees in the retail sector. The employers are looking for persons who can fit the organizational culture of the company. The human resources team in the retail industry is opting for recruiting candidates with the right behavioral fit and cultural fit, which would help them to adapt quickly to the organizational culture (Evans, 2015). The candidates working in the retail industry are giving more importance to their career progression and they are opting to work for the employers who would be able to give them the maximum possible growth (De Bruecker et al., 2015). HR strategies pertaining to retail industry An increasing number of Wesfarmer has understood the requirements for good HR policies for the organizational growth (Howard, Turban Hurley, 2016). This is because of the fact that HR managers are responsible for acquisition, development, maintenance, rewards and motivation of the team members (Howard, Turban Hurley, 2016). The HR planners should take into account the technology, organizational structure, organizational culture and the different employee characteristics (Rathi Lee, 2015). They should also take into account the core employees having high degree of knowledge, skills and values that would be beneficial for the organization. The Wesfarmer has started realizing the importance of the legislative aspects of HR, which would help them to formulate appropriate policies (Howard, Turban Hurley, 2016). There has been major shift of Australia to a decentralize manner of determining wages for the employees, which is done at Federal and State levels (McGrath-Champ et al., 2015). The organizational design is important that makes the managers formulate the formal organizational structure that would be used in the organization. This would also ensure that there is adequate coordination between the different work activities so that the organizational goals are fulfilled. The competitive approach in the global market is important for determining the way the organization would manage its human resource (Howard, Turban Hurley, 2016). A successful HR planning would ensure that the organization has the right talent at the right place at the right point of time, which would help the organization to fulfill its objectives (Dries, 2013). Challenges in HR planning for retail industry The HR planning is a dynamic job function in which there are many loopholes being faced by the planners. The main challenges in the HR planning of the retail industry of Australia are elaborated below- Low motivation level of employees- The high compensation of the employees of Wesfarmer is unable to suffice the motivation level of the employees (Angrave et al., 2016). This is due to the poor work-life balance of the employees. The retail sector does not have fixed working hours and the employees are expected to work for relatively long time (McGrath-Champ et al., 2015). High attrition rate- The HR pioneers are concerned with the high attrition rate of the retail industry. There is a tendency of the employees to quit their current organization for getting better job prospects in other organizations (Latukha, 2015). This can also hamper customer loyalty if they find new retail executives every time they visit their stores. Prevailing misconceptions- The HR personnel, when taking interviews, have realized the fact that there are growing prejudices regarding working in Wesfarmer (Soldan Nankervis, 2014). There are many people who believe that there is long working hours in those sectors with minimal growth opportunities. The jobs in this sector are often perceived as low paying ones and they are not seen as reputable jobs (McGrath-Champ et al., 2015). Solution for the given challenges For the problem of poor work life balance of the employees, the company can provide flexible working hours to its employees whereby the employees need to work in shifts. Working in desirable shifts will not only help the employees in maintaining their work life balance, it will also help the company to save its costs. The employees, when satisfied will tend to work better and reflect higher levels of motivation. In such a case, the productivity at the given workplace will also increase. The higher attrition rate of the Wesfarmer can be solved by providing additional benefits to the employees. The employees need to feel as if they are a part of the organization and thereby improve their efficiency (Markham, 2013). If the employees can be provided with career enhancement opportunities such as certificate courses in retail management or any other relevant courses then the employees might feel that their performance and participation is being appreciated and they may feel more loyal towards the firm. This loyalty shall help the firm in improving the efficiency level and promote good business operations. The growing misconception regarding Wesfarmer that the company offers long working hours and low pay can be improved by promoting their internal policy. The supermarket can provide various advertisements in the newspapers and other job related websites thereby promoting their workplace culture which can thereby highlight their new shift policy which was stated earlier. The double shift will help the workers to manage their life balance and also help the firm as happy workers will perform better. Hence, if the suggested solutions are being applied then the company will be able to attract better personnel for its retail sector. Recruitment This is considered as one of the first step of the human resources, which is considered with the attracting, short listing and the selection of suitable candidates (McGrath-Champ et al., 2015). Wesfarmer should focus on retaining the employees as the average employee turnover rate is quite high in the industry (Nikolaou, 2014). Recruitment tactics for retail industry The retail industry in Australia depends significantly on the front end sales of their products and retains the existing employees in the workplace (Markham, 2013).The recruiters in the retail industry are opting for the volume benefits that are being opted in the open interview days. They also depend on the referrals for recruiting high number of candidates in limited time period. The retail industry is often seen to offer incentives to the current employees so that they can refer their friends and acquaintances (Cravens et al., 2015). Wesfarmer in Australia believes in the fact that the local talents would be helpful in achieving the organizational mission. They would also be able to bring more appropriate skills and knowledge to the organization, as they would be able to know the countrys labor market requirement. Challenges in recruitment for Wesfarmer: Wesfarmer in Australia faces a number of challenges when the HR personnel are striving to perform recruitment job functions. They are enumerated below- Lack of educated manpower- There is lack of specialized courses on Wesfarmer, which make it difficult for the recruiters. The candidates lack specialized skills that are needed to work in this sector (Oh, Weitz Lim, 2016). Low status- Wesfarmer has been a career choice for the young people who need finances to support their education or support their family members (McGrath-Champ et al., 2015). Equal employment- There is issues with the effective implementation of the equal employment opportunities and there are instances when there is discrimination done during the time of recruitment (Oh, Weitz Lim, 2016). Solution for the Recruitment Problems for Wesfarmer The lack of educated man power can be reduced by partnering with an employee agency or conducting campus recruitments. Campus recruitments may be conducted for higher level jobs whereas, for the middle to lower level jobs, the company can tie up with various employment agencies that will take a fee but make sure that the employed candidates have a certain educational level pertaining to the industry. Like mentioned earlier, jobs at Wesfarmer are viewed as a choice for those candidates who lack finances and are forced to work in this scenario (Oh, Weitz Lim, 2016). Jobs in retail stores are often taken as low paying jobs and therefore, the company should promote itself and build up a good work culture that promotes good employment so that people are encouraged to work as a career option too not only as a choice. The retail giant Wesfarmer, should make sure that there exists no kind of discrimination in the work place so that equal employment opportunities should be provided. There are various laws which promote non-discrimination; the company should abide by these laws. This shall improve the image of the company in the eyes of the candidates. Conclusion The human resource is one of the most important vital departments of the organization in which there is a need to align to formulate policies as per the business needs of the firm. The HR is also responsible for proper planning as the entire operational functioning depends on the human resources or manpower of the firm. This report discussed some of the important HR strategies of the firm and the associated challenges. It also threw light on the different recruitment strategies and the various challenges that are being faced by the recruiters. References Angrave, D., Charlwood, A., Kirkpatrick, I., Lawrence, M., Stuart, M. (2016). HR and analytics: why HR is set to fail the big data challenge.Human Resource Management Journal,26(1), 1-11. Cravens, K. S., Oliver, E. G., Oishi, S., Stewart, J. S. (2015). Workplace culture mediates performance appraisal effectiveness and employee outcomes: A study in a retail setting.Journal of Management Accounting Research,27(2), 1-34. De Bruecker, P., Van den Bergh, J., Belin, J., Demeulemeester, E. (2015). Workforce planning incorporating skills: State of the art.European Journal of Operational Research,243(1), 1-16. Dries, N. (2013). The psychology of talent management: A review and research agenda.Human Resource Management Review,23(4), 272-285. Gharibi Yamchi, H., Azar, A., Alvani, M., Javadin, S., Javadin, R. S. (2016). Comparison of the deterministic and fuzzy approaches in HR planning.Journal of Industrial Strategic Management,1(1), 39-50. Howard, L. W., Turban, D. B., Hurley, S. K. (2016). Cooperating teams and competing reward strategies: Incentives for team performance and firm productivity.Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management,3(3). Latukha, M. (2015). Talent management in Russian companies: domestic challenges and international experience.The International Journal of Human Resource Management,26(8), 1051-1075. Markham, S. K. (2013). The Impact of Front?End Innovation Activities on Product Performance.Journal of Product Innovation Management,30(S1), 77-92. McGrath-Champ, S., Fitzgerald, S., Parding, K., Rainnie, A. (2015). Public Sector school education and the effects of marketisation: Australian/Swedish comparisons. In17th Triennial World Congress of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association. Nikolaou, I. (2014). Social networking web sites in job search and employee recruitment.International Journal of Selection and Assessment,22(2), 179-189. Oh, H., Weitz, B., Lim, J. (2016). Retail career attractiveness to college students: Connecting individual characteristics to the trade-off of job attributes.Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services,31, 345-354. Rathi, N., Lee, K. (2015). Retaining talent by enhancing organizational prestige: An HRM strategy for employees working in the retail sector.Personnel Review,44(4), 454-469. Seek.com.au, 2017. SEEK - Australia's no. 1 jobs, employment, career and recruitment site. (2017).SEEK. Retrieved 15 December 2017, from https://www.seek.com.au Soldan, Z., Nankervis, A. (2014). Employee perceptions of the effectiveness of diversity management in the Australian public service: Rhetoric and reality.Public Personnel Management,43(4), 543-564. Squires, A., Jylh, V., Jun, J., Ensio, A., Kinnunen, J. (2017). A scoping review of nursing workforce planning and forecasting research.Journal of nursing management,25(8), 587-596.