Essays i wrote for school application #1

Essay#1 Give a candid description of yourself. Stressing the personal characteristics you feel to be your strengths and weaknesses and the main factors, which have influenced your personal development, giving examples when necessary.

Encouragments and supports from my family, Buddhism teachings of middle path and the diverse environment of Thailand are the key elements that cultivated my characteristics, some of which are satisfactory- some are yet to improve.

My Favorite quality is the appetite to learn. Although sometimes I learned something just out of curiosity or for sheer pleasure; for instance, taking French lessons with no foreseeable usage of the language; but I am a believer in the power of knowledge, certain that the benefit of learning will unfold itself sooner or later, like when I discovered xxxx and its Fontainebleau campus where my humble knowledge in French could pay off.

Another quality I like is my resilient spirit. Knowing that I can pick myself up after a failure allows me to follow my instinct, take risk and try new things at my best effort and not afraid to go the extra mile in order to achieve my goal. My philosophy is even if I fail, the experience would still constructively complement my next attempt.

Empathy is one thing I have to be careful with. I am a good listener who is also sensitive that I learn quickly about the concerns of people around me. Compassion usually gained me trust and rapport from friends and coworkers, however there were instances I caught myself losing my focus trying to please others. Though I know that it is important to find a balance and stay on course for non-compromising matters, that is still easier said than done. I still need more exercises to master this skill.

I also found maintaining the level of trust and rapport is a tough job. To sustain good understanding, sufficient information sharing is vital. But in reality, there are some pieces of information that could be inappropriate to share. So far I have learned that setting a right expectation from the beginning could help prevent excessive disappointment, though not completely.

There might be some other weaknesses I have, but at the moment I would like to work on my ability of improvisation-or the lack of it to be precise. For example, if I were to give a presentation, I would need to have the outline ready and much enough time to mull the detail over. In today’s rapidly changing and unpredictable environment, the importance of improvisation is becoming imperative not only in term of presentation, but also for the organization management and leadership quality. As my ambition has a fair share between management role and communication industry, improvisation is surely a practical skill to possess alongside an MBA.

Essays i wrote for school application #2

Essay 2 Describe what you believe to be your two most substantial accomplishments to date, explaining why you view them as such

My First sales efforts: As a child, I was considerably introverted. I shunned any chance of talking to stranger, let alone trying to sell anything to anyone. Despite the fact that I grew up seeing my parents run a business in rice trading and I eventually chose marketing as my major in university, selling had never been in the list of my favorite things.

The experience that helped me overcome this phobia happened in my junior year when I attended the marketing club, which in order to let the members have a glimpse of business world would select a fresh administration team to set and run the dummy company each summer. I initially joined in planning and administrative mundane. However, amateurish we were, most of us ended up doing any task we came across. It was not too long before I had a sales team to drive. By working with the team, spending a great amount of time studying our products (which ranged from household products to satellite television) I learned to customize the approach to meet each customer's expectation and made my first series of sales records here. Even though the dollar value was nothing significant, I developed the confidence in dealing with new people in different environment. And by experiencing the pleasure of delivering satisfaction to the customers, my perspective of selling shifted positively. Now I think there will always be a worthy experience waiting each time I grow beyond my limit.

HP & Singapore: Taking the job with Hewlett-Packard Far East and moving to stay all alone in Singapore was already a revolution for me. Successfully carrying out a scrutinized task endorsed this achievement.

During the integration of post-HP-Compaq-merger, I was assigned to lead the transition to move the pre-merger Compaq operation in Thailand to join HP’s operation hub in Singapore. I had to obtain all process and procedures from the previous team with in 4 weeks. This proved to be a difficult task because the people from the previous team were fully aware that they would be laid off once the knowledge transfer complete. Naturally, they tried to hide critical information from me any time possible. This hostility caused me a long detour before finding out each process.

My accomplishment was not solely in completing this task by long devoted hours, because I think a lot of people can do the same. Therefore, the more meaningful success of this project was overcoming the sentimental barrier and deriving a win-win solution with members of the previous team. In the early years of my career, I found it difficult to tell when the professional life ends and personal life begins each day. Therefore, I always hoped that my growth in both lives would complement each other.

Essays i wrote for school application #3

Essay 3 Describe a situation taken from school, business, civil or military life, where you did not meet your personal objectives, and discuss briefly the effect.

One of my personal objectives is to use my knowledge and experience to do my best in any given task and prevent as much predictable mistake as possible. An event that I didn’t meet this objective was when the ‘Next Generation’ strategic taskforce of Imaging and Printing Group declared the new project to approach the final tier channel partners. I was offered a position to lead the operation and initially interested. While learning more about the project, I noticed an almost-identical core objective to the one of another Business operation team. Despite my feedback that we should consider to have resources leverage with the existing team, the taskforce insisted to pursue the original plan and deadline.

Though decided not to join in, I still observed the progress of this project and saw a great amount of effort was spent on recruitment, preparation and introduction to the customers. The operation had managed to go live within the tight time line. But just 2 weeks after the kick-off, it was terminated as the planning team had observed and admitted that the objective could be achieved more effectively by working with the other operation team.

Although the damage after 2 weeks was considered manageable, I felt that we could have avoided it. Seeing the structures of distribution over the years supporting all business units allowed me to spot the potential issues, but I did not manage to convince people from the task force who did not have the same visibility. I learned 2 important lessons through this experience. First is to make my finding well-articulated to the decision maker when sensing a risk. Second is the importance of understanding among business units, especially in a large organization. Without an effective internal communication, the efforts meant to surpass the competitors might turn and cause our own losses.

Essays i wrote for school application #4

Communication is a fine combination of art and science, although there are various ways to deliver the messages, not all methods are effective. And the importance of communication between any business and its customers cannot be overstated.

Besides customers, many times business also has to communicate with general public for events like advertising and public relation campaigns, or in more unfortunate events like damage control when its product/service involved in any undesirable matters. Effective communication is crucial to the success of such endeavors.

Working in a large organization, I have come to realize the importance of internal communication too. Just as a modern manager must be able to communicate with people of diverse cultural background, in the same sense, he must also be able to communicate effectively with the various members of other departments of the company. Each year, Multinational Corporations invest millions of dollar on both external public relation and internal organization effectiveness improvement. However, without sufficient planning and effective communication, this investment would not be put to good use.

The importance of these working practices has inspired me to focus my short-term career goal in organizational effectiveness. In this area I would concentrate on dealing specifically with internal communication management strategies within a Multinational Corporation. This work experience would develop my analytical and organizational skills. In the longer term, it should assist my ambition to pursue a career as a communications or public relations executive. To achieve this goal, I believe a sound knowledge of all aspects of business is indispensable. To deliver a good work in communication, an effort must be made to match the company organizational goals to the expectations of customers. It is vital that each communication is clear and cannot be misunderstood. Because the audience continually remains open to new ideas and methods, a clear and concise objective should be formulated in all communication. Fundamentally, all aspects of business should be fully understood to be able to bridge the interest of the staff and customers. Therefore, the acquisition of skills in management related work practices is of paramount importance to me.

xxxx class, with its diverse student body, is the place where new ideas are generated and debated during the course time. And after graduation, it is also important to keeps a network of people from different industries and experiences to be able to explore perspectives from different points of view. Therefore, I see an xxxx education will ensure my successful beginning as a global worker in the communication industry.

Essays i wrote for school application #5

Essay 5-What would you say to a foreigner moving to your home country?

Thailand is a place of contrast; its most renowned pursuits are tranquil meditation and aggressive kickboxing. Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is a home of hundreds serene Buddhist temples as much as it is of western über urban skyscrapers. The country is also full of scenic diversity of reserved nature, traditional/modern architecture and state-of-the-art extreme sports’ facilities.

Above all, the most valuable asset of Thailand is its people, a combination from different races and religions, who share a common sentiment that all religions indeed make their people good. The Thais are curious and fun-loving lot, at the same time, they are also caring, forgiving and open-minded. Thai people appreciate the virtue of harmony among differences and always welcome new cultures. A tip I would give the new comers once in Thailand is one of Thai favorite strategies-to deploy relationships as a tool of defense in the like of business and politic arenas. Though the country has evolved more industrious over the past few decades, relationships still carry more weight than other things in Thai society.

In general, try not to use the standard of living from where you come from as a measurement of what you are about to get. Grow beyond your limit to learn new things. Throw yourself into the galore of new experiences, especially with the locals. Take precaution moderately, but do not let preconceived notions generalize your adventure. Aim for a non-stereotype and open your mind to the sumptuous choices Thailand has to offer, have a good time!