My experience with organizations
I have some experiences in various organizations, mostly RSO from school and from companies which provides internship. Although most of them were school RSO and students run the organizations, each organizations were different culturally, structurally, and characteristically. Not all the RSOs I have been participated undergone some changes while I was a member, but they all must have went through change, even minor one. I want to talk about my experiences in some RSO and organizations of each.
When I first got into U of I and looking for RSO to join, I found several organizations that attracted my mind. It was 'Kojobs' (Korean Job Searching) and I liked the point that they provide mock interview sessions, resume critic, various study groups, and also interesting bonding activities. To get into Kojobs, there was 2 interview process being held, the first interview and the second. In the interview, President of RSO, vice president, team leader showed up to interview me and since this is more professional student organizations, the dress code for the interview was 'business professional.' It was my first time to dress up and the first impression they gave me was that they do it thoroughly, certainly, and properly. Because they gathered to help each other in job searching and they decided to make interviewees wear suit from the beginning. Even though the first interview was conducted in heavy and serious atmosphere, the second interview was in casual mood. When I got into Kojobs, I heard from one of executives that we made interview process like this because we want to show we do properly under the name of Kojobs and we also want to make people feel not too serious and join easily since it is student organizations.
After I joined Kojobs and became a member of HR team, I started to understand the organizations of Kojobs and tried to mingle with everyone. There were 5 teams, finance, human resources, business strategy, public relations, and marketing. Each of teams consists of 5~6 members and we actively worked to build and maintain 'Kojobs.' It was until after one year that Kojobs went smoothly. After a school year, since most of members in Kojobs are seniors, most of members graduated and we only had 9 people left. To make Kojobs run again, the rest decided to recruit various passionate people regardless of age or grade. After the successful interview process, we recruited 16 enthusiastic people as a part of Kojobs, but there was another problem coming at us.
Because many people left and funding from graduates got behind due to unemployment, we were having a hard time to maintain and continue. We did have financial difficulties before, but it was our first time to have negative fund. We recruited a number of people to help on this problem, but annual retreat plan almost fell through. With this difficulty, our executive team dedicate their works and used their money to cover a loss and cost of retreat for the moment. To earn some funding, we asked alumni for donation and held various fundraiser. With hard works and passion, we were able to maintain and continue Kojobs.
As I experienced in Kojobs for few years, I learned that organizations always need and undergo change and there is a way out. Our organization was firmly structured, cooperate well, and each team's roll was well defined. With specific jobs each one has and affection for Kojobs, we all could manage difficulties and adjust to changes.
When I first got into U of I and looking for RSO to join, I found several organizations that attracted my mind. It was 'Kojobs' (Korean Job Searching) and I liked the point that they provide mock interview sessions, resume critic, various study groups, and also interesting bonding activities. To get into Kojobs, there was 2 interview process being held, the first interview and the second. In the interview, President of RSO, vice president, team leader showed up to interview me and since this is more professional student organizations, the dress code for the interview was 'business professional.' It was my first time to dress up and the first impression they gave me was that they do it thoroughly, certainly, and properly. Because they gathered to help each other in job searching and they decided to make interviewees wear suit from the beginning. Even though the first interview was conducted in heavy and serious atmosphere, the second interview was in casual mood. When I got into Kojobs, I heard from one of executives that we made interview process like this because we want to show we do properly under the name of Kojobs and we also want to make people feel not too serious and join easily since it is student organizations.
After I joined Kojobs and became a member of HR team, I started to understand the organizations of Kojobs and tried to mingle with everyone. There were 5 teams, finance, human resources, business strategy, public relations, and marketing. Each of teams consists of 5~6 members and we actively worked to build and maintain 'Kojobs.' It was until after one year that Kojobs went smoothly. After a school year, since most of members in Kojobs are seniors, most of members graduated and we only had 9 people left. To make Kojobs run again, the rest decided to recruit various passionate people regardless of age or grade. After the successful interview process, we recruited 16 enthusiastic people as a part of Kojobs, but there was another problem coming at us.
Because many people left and funding from graduates got behind due to unemployment, we were having a hard time to maintain and continue. We did have financial difficulties before, but it was our first time to have negative fund. We recruited a number of people to help on this problem, but annual retreat plan almost fell through. With this difficulty, our executive team dedicate their works and used their money to cover a loss and cost of retreat for the moment. To earn some funding, we asked alumni for donation and held various fundraiser. With hard works and passion, we were able to maintain and continue Kojobs.
As I experienced in Kojobs for few years, I learned that organizations always need and undergo change and there is a way out. Our organization was firmly structured, cooperate well, and each team's roll was well defined. With specific jobs each one has and affection for Kojobs, we all could manage difficulties and adjust to changes.
That was an interesting story, but some things were unclear so I will ask about that first before making other comments. Are the jobs that Kojobs prepares students for in Korea? Or might those jobs be in the U.S.? Were your interviews in English or Korean? As it turns out, my son's college roommate is in Korea now, teaching ESL. Would Kojobs have wanted such a student to join, even if lacking in Korean ancestry? Then I'd like to know whether the group actually rejected people during the interview process. Why wouldn't it be the more the merrier, as long as the person being interviewed was earnest during the process? And finally, are there other ways on campus that Korean students might prepare for the job market aside from Kojobs?
ReplyDeleteMy comments are this mainly this, as the issue you discussed about senior leadership has come up with other students. An ideal for any group like Kojobs, would be to have the same number of members as sophomores, juniors, and seniors (I'm unclear whether there were freshmen in the group or not). The group would only recruit sophomores, unless it has some juniors or seniors quit. Assuming that to be unlikely and that the group kept the members interested in staying as members, this way the numbers would be pretty much fixed over time. A brand new organization can't to this, but one that's been around for a while should be able to achieve it. So you need to explain more why that didn't happen in your experience.
You talked about an annual retreat, but you didn't explain what happens at it or why it is important. I can image that some people would prefer not to pay for a retreat if they didn't think it was a valuable thing, so you need to explain its significance. Also you need to consider the alternative where Kojobs function without a retreat. What would be the consequences of that.
In other words, I'm an outsider to all of this and you are explaining things to an outsider. So you need to make the context more apparent. As you wrote it, that wasn't clear.
Kojobs is a student RSO which provides job searching opportunities / self-development for students who are preparing to find a job in Korea or the US (or any country but usually those two). During mock interview or job searching session, students are divided by several groups based on which country they are aiming to get a job or which language they are using at the interview. We would recruit Korean (or people who can speak Korean) because our organization activities are conducted under Korean. So if someone who can't speak Korean, it would be hard for them to understand or join activities that are processed by Korean. For now, people who applied for Kojobs were Korean so we did not reject based on their nationality. There are research center and I know that they have various job searching sessions going on, or even students can go to career fair.
DeleteThere were not many freshmen in our Kojobs before because many freshmen don't care about future career seriously and deeply than upper graders. But, after fall recruitment, there are some freshmen came in and I enjoy talking with them what they want to do in the future! We did have a lot of members but only for one semester (last spring) we didn't recruit a lot of members since we thought we have enough people and we don't wanted recruit just many people because a lot of members are going to be graduating. We wanted to see each person's personality, skills, and willingness.
Annual retreat was an important thing in Kojobs because it is the first time to gather all members, including new members. It is a great opportunity for existing members and new members to get along and get to know each other. Many, I would say all, Korean RSOs go to annual retreat because it is kind of a tradition of RSO (in Korea). We rent a resort and have barbecue, recreational games, and communicate. I think it is very important and without retreat it would be hard to make all people become intimate and get to know this quickly.