I can't believe it, after two weeks with no job offering finally God has answered my pray. I get a chance to do a psycho test on Wednesday morning in one of the biggest tobacco players in my country. The test will begin at 8 am so I am preparing myself to be wake up at 5, then prepare everything and going there before six, just to make sure I will not be late.
I reached there at 7 and there is only one guy in a waiting room. Later we talked out and realized we are in the same purpose, to apply for a job. He looks polished, as an ex-banker with 3 years experience managing a small team try to seize this opportunity to be a field supervisor. He shares his experience when working in his previous company, and talked a lot about the current banking condition in my country.
People start gathering and in half hour, the room suddenly filled with many candidates, as I could count, is around 50 people there and finally, the company delegate shows up and tell us to move into a hall room. I sitting near windows and joining others table. There were 4 persons there including me, was introduced each other. One worked in the local bank, try to get opportunities here, same with a guy who works in stock exchange. The most surprising are one of us, I don't know if it's true, but he claims he is a manager in news station as a broadcaster. By talking with some of the people in this room, I understand the standard in this job is higher than other places.
Time has reached 8:30 and still, the interviewer did not show up, and the room is quite noisy as people just wait and has no other thing to do until 9, finally the examiner come up and said, today we will do a psycho test and will use rank system, for those who is falling behind, half of us must leave this place.
The first test is the combination of calculation and logic, which test your detail and creativity which is my strong point. I didn't see any problem since the exam just tests those two things. I passed on the first exam and the next step I need to bring a short presentation in next week, with three given topics: What is your best accomplishment? How you ever made a big mistake and how you fix it? When you have given the task to leading people and how you make them work for you?. I have lunch with those who passed at the burger joint and then bid farewell.
Well, this is my first time competing with many competitors, as 200 people were collected in that room and I passed even just in the first step is something I could be proud of. I went back home cheerfully and then focused on my job seeking role. Since I didn't sleep last night, when I arrived home, I am overslept till night.
I use this whole week to study about FGD and panel interview, since I never done before, I opened youtube & search on google how to passed this test, I try to imagine myself be in the place. While it still in next week, I was busy job searching and prepare myself with interview question. Then, one week passed.
I was there one hour earlier, and many people were there, more than I expected since the first test has cut many candidates off. I talked with some candidates and what makes me surprise is they seems experienced and prepared with this kind of test, there is no fact about it because I know their body language shows confidence and most of the people has it.
Later we are grouped in one hall, there were around 100 persons in this room, and we get announcement from the interviewer to divide our group into 4 persons. My team was ex business consultant, one marketing agent and one fresh graduate. With this division, we are expected to be prepared to answer question in group. Everyone in this group seems has different way of thinking, as we are not talking much and more focused on what is ahead.
We moved to the meeting room, there was another team there that consist of 4 persons, one human resource, and 2 persons is the person who will be our investor in this game. This discussion is about business decision with two choices, to facing competitor directly or to hit the new market our competitor hasn't play. The company model we use is an FMCG industry, specialized in food and beverages. There was 3 questions in this game:
1. The strength of our company compared to competitor
2. The strategy to outperform competitor
3. How many we spend for this new product campaign?
We were given two sheets of data, filled with numbers and charts. Then one person initiatively want us to read about it for 5 minutes and discuss for 5 minutes, before discussing to other team and hand it to our investor.In 5 minutes I was focused more with the numbers and charts and make a conclusion related to it, other teammate seems following through. In the whole discussion, I remember the 3 moments when I gained the highest exposure in this discussiogn, there are;
1. Showing the key facts of competitor strength, and our position if we clash with that number
2. Giving suggestion that is not relevant to the investor question, which I regret it much. I was dead when the investor replying my suggestion and no one in my team, including me could answer it
3. Showing a forecast that empowering my teammate suggestion, however, I didn't consider this as good move since I am not the one who initiate the discussion
And this 15 minutes seems like forever, I never felt this tense during discussion, even the topic was not that serious, as most of us just giving the answer by their sense.
The interviewer then back to us, and told us congratulation for the name on this letter, and be prepared for the next round. It come first name, those who are very talkative in this room, then the second one, who also being talkative and the last one, surprisingly, the fresh graduates. I admit her as she comes up with two solutions, no one in this room ever think of and I believe she worth to be move to the next step. Only three was qualified and the rest, will have another chance next year.
I think this is the good experience for me even I failed, and I congratulates them then congratulating myself, as I went down this far by walking around the building. I feel extremely sad but one side, I want to be working with them, and be one of them.
0 comments
Post a Comment