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Welcome to Students Incorporated. I'm your host, Mr. Jason. Join me weekly as my team and I produce content that's informative, positive, fun, and uplifting. This podcast is created and produced with the help of students from the International Community School of Bangkok.

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Hello and welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Mr. Jason, and I'm joined by co-host Mia and Frank. Today's episode is sponsored by the CSPC Pharmaceutical Group.

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CSPC is one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in China with offices in Hong Kong. It's been listed on the Hong Kong Exchange since 1994.

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CSPC supplies both finished and bulk medicines ranging from disease therapeutics to antibiotics. So thank you again for helping sponsor this episode.

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Today we welcome a special guest, Mr. Boonlard, or BL for short. He'll be helping us explore that weird gap that happens between university and before you land your first career-focused job.

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He also will be helping us compare and contrast proper answers to job interview questions and not-so-proper answers.

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But before we get into our main topic, let's hear our quote of the day and get some headline news.

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Our quote of the day comes from Sir Richard Branson, an English entrepreneur known for co-founding The Virgin Group.

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He's quoted to have said, train people well enough so they can leave, trade them well enough so they don't want to.

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In this quote, he shined some light on how people learn and leave. But the point of the quote is to teach and treat your employer well.

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With artificial intelligence becoming more prominent daily, we must realize that humans are the most essential resource.

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Though we can teach humans like AI, we can't force them to stay in the company for a lifetime.

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The best we can do is both to train them well and treat them well for as long as we have them.

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And that's our quote of the day. Now onto some headline news with Mia.

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Thank you for our quote of the day, Frank. Now here's some headline news from around the world.

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Our first headline comes from Samsung. Samsung has released its new tablet, the Galaxy Tab S10 series, which could be the most AI-ready tablet Samsung has ever released.

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The tablets S10 and S10 Plus are created to help you to be creative, yet productive.

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The tablet's hardware includes the dynamic AMOLED 2X displays as well as significant improvements in their CPU and GPU performances over their previous models.

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The included S-Pens and AI features assist you in writing notes and drawing.

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Not only so, they are connected to the AI ecosystem, allowing you more control over your other Samsung devices.

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Our next headline comes from Alge, Samsung's main competitor.

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Alge Electronics is bolstering its position in the 5G private network market by becoming the first company to earn the domestic network equipment certification from the Korean Association of Network Industries.

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This highlights Samsung's main competitor's development of a secure 5G network in South Korea, allowing the company to supply these products to public institutions.

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And finally, our last headline comes from Lifewire.com. The brand Nothing has recently released their new budget-friendly series, CMF, by Nothing.

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The devices are all high quality while being extremely affordable.

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For example, the CMF Phone 1 is priced at the low price of $199 USD or around $6,000 Thai Baht.

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The Watch 2 and Buds 2 are under $3,000 Baht or $100 USD.

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The best part about this series is that it's customizable.

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The phone has a replaceable backplate where you can add attachments, and the phone itself is not the case.

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This is exciting news as we are seeing more affordable and customizable phone options coming to the market.

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And that concludes our headline news for this episode.

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Thank you for the quote in the headline news. We welcome guest Mr. Boonlard to the studio, or as some call him by his nickname BL.

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And someone else in our studio calls him Dad, right Mia?

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It's always a privilege to have family members join and I'm excited about this topic today.

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Last season we dedicated one of our episodes to that transition to the phone.

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For young people and parents between high school and university and what are some practical things that they could do or can expect during that time.

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Now for this episode Mr. Boonlard will help us think through another transition time specifically for young college graduates.

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And that's that time between university and their first career focus.

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And that's the time that we are going to be talking about in this episode.

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Okay, let's jump into our first segment as Frank starts us off.

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Hello and welcome to the podcast.

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So could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do?

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I have a bachelor degree in computer engineering and then I did a I got an honor in MBA in Thailand and I've been working in a corporate company.

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For about 30 years, mostly IBM and Samsung Electronics where I manage about 120 people running business about 10 billion bahts per year.

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So and currently I'm doing some kind of a freelance job.

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I'm an advisor to an online marketing strategy company.

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So I'm currently an advisor to the CEO.

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All right. Thank you so much for your introduction.

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Now I'll be asking the first question.

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What were your expectations about the corporate world before graduating?

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I don't really expect much because you really don't know what you're going to get.

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My advice would be keep open minded and you look for something that you want to do.

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I mean some people graduated accounting in or in medicines.

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Obviously they're going to be doing accountings in a firm or they're going to be doing they're going to become a doctor.

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So they'll be practicing what they've learned in the university.

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But believe me most people won't be doing what you study from the university.

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But what you gain from it is a different sort of skills like problem solving multitasking teamwork how to handle deadlines and stuff you know how how how to really achieve things.

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And and and that would be you know more like a key skills that you require when you go to the work in the companies.

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And that's what they're looking for people who really delivers.

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So so yeah for me I didn't I didn't expect much but I wanted to learn.

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I wanted to learn more.

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I want to buy more skills when I when I get the first jobs.

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And that's what you should aim for during your first four or five years when you start working you know learn more and get get more skills become better.

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There's definitely an interesting view on it.

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And so I think I heard you say something about if someone graduated with accounting degree or something they would you know work towards being and preparing to account for stuff.

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So how did your academic experiences prepare you for professional life.

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Well I had a engineering degree so so I start working as an engineer.

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I was a programmer for three years and I didn't like it.

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And then I became a system engineer for another two years.

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So I spent about five years in engineering fields which I didn't really like it.

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And and later I became a salesperson.

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And then you know it's more like a business now because you're in sales you're running you're running as small accounts and then you grow.

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You know you're running a small team.

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You're running a business units.

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So yeah I mean even though you you study medicines or you study accounting or finance or whatever you study from university.

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It doesn't mean that you can't change because when you actually come to work and then later you realize that OK this is not something that I am going to spend the rest of my life with.

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So so it's OK to change.

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I mean many many doctors became a very successful businessman and many engineers became a very successful financial advisors.

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So you know these these things happens but I think the key thing is you got to you got to learn you know when you come and join the workforce.

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I think you got to learn more on what you're doing and what they are doing what the industry is doing and what you are trying to achieve.

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It's important to have goals.

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I think that that's the key.

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Yeah for sure. Definitely I think that experiences not only help you gain a better understanding of the world outside of the classroom or the lecture hall but you also get to find out more about yourself as well.

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Now on to our next question.

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How did you go about identifying the right company culture for yourself.

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Well first of all you wouldn't know which company has which culture.

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So it's difficult to answer this and but for me when I left I mean finish university and join a company.

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My goal was to join the best company in that industry.

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That's what that was my goal.

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So at that time it was IBM because there's no Microsoft in Thailand.

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Yeah it's about 30 years ago so you don't really know what culture the company has. But I think the key is you when you join a company you have to give yourself and give the company itself sometimes because you need to really adjust because their way of doing things within the companies.

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And you're not doing things on your own. You're not doing things with two or three friends but you're doing things you know with two or three hundred other people.

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So there will be rules there'll be process that you have to learn and sometimes you feel like it's silly why you do it this way. Why not the other way.

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But there's a you know I'm sure there's a good rationale behind it that the way they do things like that.

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So I think for you know young graduates to join a company you have to be really open minded and learn what they are doing.

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And you know it's good to choose a very well established company especially international company because if they're well established they really really have the culture that will shape you.

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I've spent you know eight or nine years in IBM and the first four years they really really shaped you. Even though I find very difficult during the first year trying to adjust to the way they do with me things.

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But you know you give it self times give yourself time and then you will adjust and you learn. And I think that's the key.

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Yeah definitely. Also I also really agree on you saying that like you know we should not like try to shape how the culture should be to ours but instead we should shape ourselves to be open to the different cultures.

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And so yeah so what factors should students consider when choosing their first job.

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Different people have different ideas about work. Some people enjoy coming to work at nine and go home at five and you know enjoy the rest of the day.

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And that's fine you know that because we need people like that to do some office work especially and you know normally the back office behavior would be more like that.

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But there's also people who enjoy more adventures you know like the front end of the of the company like sales and marketing and stuff like that.

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And enjoying meeting people's enjoying you know solving the problems for the clients and stuff like that.

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So it's really really depends on you know what sort of person you are and what kind of a job that you enjoy.

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And if you join the company and then you realize that you know after you spend six months or a year and you realize that OK this is this is not for me.

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You know it's OK to change because you know there's no one size fits all here.

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Like I mentioned I was an engineer for five years. I changed to business. I enjoyed more and I stay on business side of things.

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I guess there's there's no really fixed answers for this.

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Yeah definitely for sure. All right I'll definitely keep that in mind for the near future.

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And moving on to our next question could you share a story about one of your most achievable moments in your career.

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Well I guess it would be my first year at Samsung. I got promoted after about 11 months when I joined Samsung.

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That was good. I get my pay raise three times that year and my responsibility grow like humongous.

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You know and yeah that would be my most achievable in my career.

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But I think I think for me my success in life would be I graduated from computer engineering.

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Computer engineering. It was it was difficult subjects to take and I feel like OK at that time I managed to you know go through it and graduated.

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So I thought that was good. Yeah but if you talk about my career I guess Samsung first year was very good too.

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That's definitely very interesting you know being promoted after only being in the company for like 11 months.

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But yeah so how did you adjust to the work life balance after university.

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I don't think you have that issue when you first join the company being a being you know a freshie to the company.

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So first first few years you I don't think you're going to have that that kind of problems.

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So yeah but but my advice would be like you should be willing to take on more responsibility if they are delegated to you.

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Don't be like oh this is not my job. I don't want to do it. Don't be like that.

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I mean even though it's not exactly your job or in your job description but if your managers delegated to you I think you know there must be some kind of rational behind.

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Maybe he or she wants you to learn more and it is a good opportunity to learn more and expand your responsibility.

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That's how you grow. If you don't take on more responsibility there's no way you're going to grow.

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How are they going to pay you? You know you got to take on you know more burdens more revenues you know so they can make more money and obviously pay you more.

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So think think of it as a growth opportunity and then do your best.

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For sure I think willing to take on more responsibility is definitely very important.

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I think in high school as well in a university and also you know further on in a working company.

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So this leads to my next question which what strategies do you recommend for managing stress in a corporate environment?

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Don't take your work home. Well my for me I think you have to delegate and don't take your work don't try not to take your work home.

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Try to solve the problems. I mean tomorrow when you come to work it's still be there.

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So there's no point worrying about it so much but I know I mean I also get stressed out sometimes but as long as you have plan the solution plan how you're going to solve the problems.

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I think it helps you sleep better at night. So I mean yeah try try to have some sort of plan what you're going to how you're going to attack the problems and how you're going to handle that stress and then and leave your work at the workplace.

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Don't take it home. I definitely agree with that and matter of fact I can relate to it in some case.

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Not that work of course but you know I'm talking about homework. So of course it's probably sure that you're going to have some homework at some point but sometimes you can just finish them in class and you'll be relaxed at home.

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And so finally with our final question for this first segment what advice would you give to new graduates on managing expectations in their first job.

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I think it depends because when I when I started off my career I was my goal was to grow and that's it. I think I would like everybody to expect to learn.

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That's what you should expect because you're going there after the university you have acquired certain skills but when you go into the real world you require a different set of skills.

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So you should be expecting to learn because you need to learn more and work experience is very important.

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And you know you're not learning about just functional job but you're learning about how to handle people how to work with other people how to follow the process how the company balance between revenue and control how to handle the customers.

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You know they're never happy how to make them happy with you you know and all this sort of things would be very very new to you.

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And if you like it then I think you will you will do well and you know try to try to take on you know more responsibility because it will give you growth.

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And if you're going to look for a company to to to join then you should ask yourself too like what what kind of person you are and what are you looking for in in in your job.

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Because if you're looking for a nine to five job then there's certain company that's good for that. And if you're looking for more you know you know growth if you want to go to the top then you know there's certain kind of companies that you should look for.

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All right thank you that ends our first segment with some really good advice and I know we've said this before on the podcast and different episodes but the idea of not only learning the hard skills of whatever you're studying the technical skills but it's almost just as important to learn those soft skills of critical thinking problem solving how to get along with people.

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So thank you for providing some really good advice and insight into how young people can transition from university to their first career focused job.

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Don't go anywhere as we'll be right back with part two as we evaluate good and bad responses to common interview questions.

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But first here's a message about our sponsor.

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CSPC pharmaceutical group is a leader in pharmaceutical innovation and health care solutions guided by their mission of all for good medicine all for mankind's health.

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CSPC is committed to improving the quality of human life by producing high quality safe and effective medicines from nervous system diseases and oncology to cardiovascular health CSPC continues to bring groundbreaking treatments to patients worldwide.

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Their dedication extends beyond medicine as they actively support social welfare initiatives and global health crisis is showing a steadfast commitment to bettering communities and protecting lives.

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Whether it's through disaster relief or supporting health care for vulnerable populations, their corporate social responsibility efforts demonstrate their dedication to making the world a better place.

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With a strong commitment to research and development, CSPC is at the forefront of pharmaceutical science and innovation.

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They have set a global standard for excellence in production and management.

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Learn more about CSPC's work and their contributions to the field of medicine by visiting their website at CSPC.com.hk.

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Now back to our second segment.

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And we are back with part two and while we still have Mr. BL in the studio, we thought it would be helpful for him to help us navigate through some common job interview questions along with some advice on proper and not so proper ways to answer some of those questions.

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This can be super helpful, especially if you have someone who has never been in a formal interview session or if it's been a long time since you've been in a formal interview session.

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Either way, let's jump into our role playing example and how we will structure this segment.

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We have prepared seven common and generic interview questions that are often used in interviews.

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Mr. BL will play the role of an employer or the interviewer and Mia and Frank will play the roles of candidates who are seeking a job.

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Let's see if you can tell which response from our candidates is a good answer and which response is a not so good answer.

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For the sake of time, we are skipping the pre-question pleasantries and introductions that often occur right at the beginning of an interview.

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We'll jump right into the questions and responses.

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Mr. BL, go ahead and share your first interview question.

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Can you describe the challenge you have faced in a previous role or how you overcame it?

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Hello and thank you for taking time for me today.

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To answer your question, in my previous role, my team and I consistently faced a tight work schedule.

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In order to take on this challenge, I organized team meetings, I helped prioritize tasks, and often handed out responsibilities to other team members.

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In doing this, we became much more efficient as a team and we were able to both meet tight deadlines and maintain high quality.

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Hey, how's it going? Yeah, I can't really think of any specific challenges.

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I mean, like things in my previous roles were pretty easy, you know, not saying I was lazy or anything.

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I just didn't really face any major challenges or issues that I can remember.

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If there was something I usually just did myself as my team was pretty unreliable, not to mention my boss either, but he was kind of a piece of work.

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So, yeah.

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If you just graduated and looking for the first job, the question would be more like, you know,

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what kind of activity at school you have done or, you know, beside your study.

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Because I would be looking at your GPA definitely because it would show me how hardworking you are, how responsible you are.

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That's one thing.

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And your activity that you have done at the school, it will show me what kind of a person you are and what kind of experiences that you have.

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And I would judge whether that experience fits for the job that you are applying for.

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So, the activities or sports or anything that you do at school or at university are very, very important.

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Okay, because if I'm looking for a salesperson or marketing person, any kind of activity with that experience will give you advantage.

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Let's move on to the next question.

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Can you explain to me how you prioritize tasks when you have multiple deadlines to account for?

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I usually just work on whatever task seems easiest at the time or what I feel like at the moment.

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Sometimes I end up missing deadlines.

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But anyways, I don't think it's that big of a deal since my supervisor never really brings it up when we hang out at lunch or after work on Fridays.

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Thank you for that question.

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I use the to-do list based on priority tier to assess tasks based on urgency and importance.

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This helps me focus on high impact activities first and manage my time effectively.

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And I sometimes have to break down different tasks into smaller manageable steps.

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I also communicate openly with my team and manager to ensure my task priorities are correct.

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Let's say if I have four kinds of job.

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One, important and urgent.

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Second, not important, not urgent.

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Third, important, but not urgent.

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Fourth, not important, but urgent.

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Which one would you do first?

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Important and urgent.

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Important and urgent, okay. Definitely.

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Which one is the second one that you would do?

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I say urgent because even though something's important, since it's not urgent, it means I can do it later.

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Okay. Definitely you would do the important and urgent first because it's very important and it's urgent.

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It must be done now.

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Secondly, you should do the important one first.

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Even though it's not urgent today, but because it's important, it will be urgent tomorrow.

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So always focus on important jobs.

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And if it's not urgent, I mean if it's not important, that task later on will just disappear.

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Because it's not so important. Nobody cares. Nobody wants it.

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Okay. So focus on your important jobs because later on it will become very important anyway.

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I mean very urgent anyway.

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Next question is what motivates you to perform well at work?

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I'm motivated by challenges and the opportunity to learn new skills.

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Seeing my contributions make a positive impact on the team keeps me engaged and driven.

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I also like to know how by doing my job and doing it well helps the overall company.

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Of course it's money. You know, ta-ching.

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You know, getting a paycheck is a big motivation for me.

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I guess there are probably other reasons, but I can't really think of anything except money at the moment.

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Okay. Motivations. It really depends.

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If I'm looking for someone who's in the front line, sales and marketing,

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and if the answer is money, that is very good.

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Because I can motivate them with more incentives, more commissions, more pay,

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in order to gain more revenue for the company.

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So don't think that money is a bad answer.

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Actually it's pretty good, but it depends on what you're doing.

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But usually people would say, okay, as long as I learn more and I gain more skills,

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that would be the motivation because it will move you to the next step in your career.

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And the next question, what do you see yourself in the next five years?

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I see myself taking on more leadership responsibilities

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and further developing my skills in this field and industry.

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I'm excited about the potential for growth within your company,

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and I feel I can learn a lot here and hopefully in turn be a contributor

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and help bring even more value to what you are already doing here.

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I haven't really thought about it. I'm just living day by day.

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I don't really care about the future that is coming.

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I don't really like to think about that far ahead.

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Maybe if I like this job, I would still be here, but who knows really.

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When I ask this question, I just want to see what is your goal and what is your plan.

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And actually, I would be also looking for like how long are you planning to stay with us?

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Because I don't want to recruit someone who stays for a year

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and then move out and join other company.

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It's costly for the company to do that.

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So looking for growth is good.

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Some people would say, I want to become an entrepreneur,

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and that's fine because the company can provide you with the skills

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that you need when you become an entrepreneur.

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But the thing is we want to make sure that you stay for certain periods

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because who knows after two or three years, your plan can change.

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So the key thing is have goals.

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When you join a company, make sure you set your own goal, whatever it is.

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Like I want to become a manager within four years, five years.

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I want to move from this title to another department.

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I want to learn more about these departments, things like that.

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That's fine.

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And the next question is, can you give me an example of a time you worked with a team

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or what your role was on that team?

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Honestly speaking, I prefer to work alone.

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I'm an introvert and the times I've had to work on teams,

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well, let's just say I didn't really like it that much.

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The work just seemed to move a lot slower,

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and I don't really like talking or talking to other people much.

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In a project last year, I was part of a cross-functional team.

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I took on the role of a coordinator.

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In this role, I helped ensure everyone communicated effectively,

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and I also made sure our tasks were aligned with the overall project goals.

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The project was quite successful as well.

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Let's say if I'm looking for a teamwork experience,

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I might ask you, what do you think is a good characteristic of a good team?

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Obviously, the answer would be first, you must have the common goal,

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and you must know your role and responsibility for the team.

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But if I look for what exactly have you done,

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then I would ask more in-depth questions like, what exactly did you do?

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Describe the tasks that you did.

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Be more specific rather than general,

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because some people join a great team but actually did nothing,

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and just use that achievement of that team and try to reclaim it to be their own.

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Obviously, an interviewer just wants to make sure that you are really a contributor,

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not just a free rider.

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Teamwork is very important.

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Let me move on to the next question.

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How do you handle constructive criticism?

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I don't really like criticism, so I usually just ignore it.

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And really, how can criticism be constructive anyway?

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I mean, like, isn't that just an oxymoron?

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I can appreciate constructive criticism a lot.

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You know, it helps me grow and learn,

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especially when I'm training for a new role or at a different company.

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When I receive feedbacks, I like to take time to reflect on it

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and actively work on those areas for improvement.

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So at the end of the day, I welcome it, and I know it is for my benefit.

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Direct talks is very, very important skill, especially for leaders.

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And you must possess that skill, direct talk,

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because you're going to be doing that with your boss, with your peers, and with the clients.

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If you cannot deliver something, it's better to directly tell the client,

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you know, what the problem was,

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so both of you can sort of come up with a solution to fix it

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before the trouble gets bigger and it becomes more costly to the clients,

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things like that.

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So direct talk is very important.

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And as a person getting the criticism, you should have open-minded,

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and, you know, think about it, go back and think about it,

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how you're going to fix it, how you're going to improve that.

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And if you need help, always go to your boss.

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Okay? So the last questions.

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So what skill do you think are essential for this position,

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and how do you embody them?

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I believe strong communication and problem-solving skills are essential for this role.

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I've developed these through my previous experiences,

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like resolving issues with customers or coworkers quickly and effectively.

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And I'm open and willing to learn or enhance my technical skills

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as I want to perform my job well.

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I'm excited to pick up any and all new skills along the way

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and desire to be a valuable asset to this company.

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I don't really know what skills are needed.

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I mean, I know it sounds like I didn't do any research.

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I mean, I kind of didn't.

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But I looked at the requirement quickly on the car ride over here,

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and there was really nothing in the job description that stood out to me.

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Regarding skills, so what skills are needed?

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Okay. So normally we look for two sets of skills in every job.

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First is the functional skills,

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meaning if you're going to become an accountant, do you know accounting?

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If you don't, that's it, finished.

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Okay? So we look for the functional skills.

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Can you do the job?

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Second is the people skills.

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Can you work in a team?

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Can you work when somebody is your boss?

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Or do you have to work alone?

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It really depends on the job.

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Can you manage people?

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And more questions will be asked.

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For example, I would ask, like, how does your friend sees you?

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What characteristic your friend would talk about you?

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If I asked your friend, what would they say about you?

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Or if I asked your boss, what would they say about you?

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Okay?

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And that would tell me how other people sees you,

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and that would be very useful information for the interviewer.

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Prepare to answer that.

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So that's about it, seven questions.

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That was kind of a mock situation or a scenario we wanted to put together

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with some common interview questions,

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with some explanation as well of why an interviewer

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would ask potential candidates about that.

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So thank you for helping us with that scenario today.

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It's super helpful for you to be able to, like,

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inject more experience and even better the question.

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So on behalf of all the Students Incorporated team and our listeners,

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you've given some great advice and helped us think through many things

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that we can take to heart today.

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So functional skills, important, but also people skills.

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So keep that in mind.

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Thank you again.

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Thank you.

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MUSIC

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As we end this episode, we'd like to once again thank our episode sponsor,

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CSPC Pharmaceutical Group, whose mission is,

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all for good medicine, all for mankind's health.

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Stay tuned for our next episode as we have a battle of the wits

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between several of our team members and hosted by two special guests.

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And as always, this podcast would not be possible without the hard work

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and support of our International Student Production Team.

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All music and sound effects are courtesy of Pixabay.com,

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a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright-free images, videos, and music.

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And we are signing off until next time.

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We are Students Incorporated, because your voice matters.

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MUSIC