Hiring Gets Off on the Right Foot Essay Example for Free

Hiring Gets Off on the Right Foot Essay Nike has adapted their employee selection techniques by using a computer-based interviewing system that aims to select suitable applicants for a specific job (Bohlander, 2007, p. 284). The said system can be very useful to the company’s human resources department since it makes their job a lot easier. However, the efficiency and effectiveness of the said process should still be proven. Generally, the said computer-generated interview can be very beneficial both to the applicant and human resource department. Nevertheless, it also has some setbacks although these setbacks are negligible and can be ironed out. The computer-based interviewing system is applicable especially to large companies like Nike; on the other hand, a company should not solely rely on this type of employee selection process. Other ways of employee selection should still be utilized such as accepting walk-ins in a personal interview rather than a computerized one. Analysis The computer-assisted interviewing system tries to narrow down the selection of qualified applicants to a minimum so that the human resource department need not spend time on all applicants (Bohlander, 2007, p. 285). This is successfully met by the said system since modern high technology usually reduces the clutter of office work. As in the case of Nike, computer-based interviews can be of great help if the number of applicants is really large. By doing so, few people are needed in the human resources department. Also, by subjecting the applicant’s to this computer interview, human resource managers will have the idea how the applicants cope or adapt with technology. Are they computer literate and able to keep up with the idea of a computer interviewing them? Do they easily understand instruction by merely looking and reading at a computer monitor? These are some of the questions that can be answered by employing such a process. In addition, the three customer-related scenarios in the computer-generated interview are very practical and realistic scenarios to test the applicant’s approach to the real job at hand. The system has many advantages as has been pointed out in the previous discussion, yet, it also has some weaknesses. One very important factor in choosing the right person for the job is his emotional health. Using the computer-generated interview, Nike cannot account the applicant’s emotions and feelings while the interview is going on. Thus, the computer cannot tell the company of the level of confidence an applicant has when the interview is done. Furthermore, there will always be Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) concerns when it comes to employment selection processes. In this case at hand, the company surely provides EEO since the computer is not programmed to unjustly cater to a selected group of applicants. Thus, discrimination that a human resource officer may unconsciously bring when interviewing an applicant may be eliminated. Recommendations On the whole, the computer-based interviewing system is beneficial if it is used hand in hand with other types or ways of employee selection. However, on its own, it is very inefficient. It can be suggested that personal interviews should still be employed by the company since this kind of interview are the most spontaneous and revealing. Also, to further develop the computer-based interviewing system, besides the printout, it will be better if the company will include a video camera that could record the features, facial expressions and gestures that an applicant may have while answering questions. By doing so, the applicants emotional aspect can also be observed. A psychology test can also be included in the computer-based interview to evaluate the person’s emotional health. Summary and Conclusion Positively, the computer-based interviewing system is a great innovative for the human resource department of the company. As the number of applicants for a particular job increases, the feasibility of this method also increases. However, it is still insisted that the computer-generated interview should not be the sole factor in selecting the right person for the job. Personal interviews will always be more helpful. Surely, Nike should be concerned that the interview they are doing is far from public relations. Public relations require people in the process, also, an interview is a conversation between two people, however, the computer is not a human being, and it is only a machine. Therefore, the computer-based interview is one of the means of employee selection but it is not the end. It is only one way of the many methods an effective complex employment selection may have. References Bohlander, G. , Snell, S. (2007). Managing Human Resources, 14th Ed. Mason, USA: Thomson South-Western.

Euthanasia: Whose Life Is It? :: Euthanasia Physician Assisted Suicide

Euthanasia: Whose Life Is It? Imagine a body slowly and excruciatingly being broken down by an unseen and uncontrollable invader. Now imagine that there is a law preventing anyone from ending that suffering. Welcome to the argument over euthanasia. Euthanasia is defined as "the act or practice of killing out of mercy." Euthanasia technically exists in four categories: active, passive, voluntary, and involuntary. Passive euthanasia is the act of removing all treatments and forms of life support intended to prolong life or cure illness, and allowing the patient to die of natural causes. Active euthanasia consists of an outside force actually causing the death of the patient, or hastening the death with the use of drugs and other tools. When the patient is fully competent and capable of making this life or death decision on his or her own, it is considered voluntary euthanasia. If the decision is made for the patient, due to him or her being rendered incapable of this sentient conclusion, it is labeled as involuntary euthanasia. For the past several decades, this has been a major issue, making its way from activist groups to the Supreme Court. The debate over euthanasia was ignited publicly in 1988 with an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine about an experience in committing active euthanasia. The act of euthanasia, in either passive or active form, is acceptable in only one nation in the world. Even there, in the Netherlands, it is permitted in only certain cases as specified and supervised by the legal system, and has yet to be fully legalized. Euthanasia should be legalized because it is a personal choice. The argument over euthanasia is complex and multi-faceted; particularly dealing with the responsibility of those involved in the act. Many people, in the argument against euthanasia, claim that if euthanasia were made legal in the United States, physicians would abuse that law. They say that insurance companies would place pressure on the doctors to encourage this choice in their patients to save costs. Another claim is that the physicians may shrug off their responsibility to their patients and choose the quick and easy way out while charging a hefty cost.

“A Taste of Honey” by Shelagh Delaney

In writing, â€Å"A Taste of Honey† in the year 1958, what impact did Shelagh Delaney desire to leave on her audience members and what type of technique did she use in connecting them?Shelagh Deleney wrote her plays for the upper and middle classed of people where individuals could find the scenes completely opposite to what they were familiar with and saw everyday in society.Delaney didn’t focus on families being what everyone conceived them as, where the family consisted of the head of the household or the dad, working for the family in order to earn a living and then the mother who stayed at home and cooked and cleaned and tended to the children.We learn at 123HelpMe.com that Shelagh Delaney tells us that, (p.1) â€Å"The stereotypical play was where the men worked and the women stayed at home, cleaning and cooking.†Delaney wanted to offer something entirely different to her audience and she used her vivid imagination to shock her audience members with familie s that were entirely, untraditional.â€Å"A Taste of Honey† (back cover) offers to enlighten us that, â€Å"A Taste of Honey† is â€Å"a sensational theatrical success in London. A Taste of Honey was written by Shelagh Delaney at the age of 18.The play prompted Graham Greene to say that it had â€Å"all the freshness of Mr. Osborne’s Look Back in Anger and a greater maturity.† Delaney’s play was successful because of her originality.Delaney is compared to another great writer and is even paid the compliment that her writing is more mature than that of someone who is more experienced in the writing field and who is much older than Delaney.Delaney’s writing style was mature because she wished to connect with her audience members and to achieve that she found it necessary to write with maturity and on topics that would appeal to those members who viewed her play.In the first act of Delaney‘s play it opens up with two character entering a room, carrying their belongings. (P. 1) Book Rags teaches us that, â€Å"The scene opens in a shabby apartment in Manchester, England, in 1956. Helen and her teenage daughter, Jo, enter loaded with bags. Helen is described as a semi-prostitute, but her men are her only known source of financial support.†Delaney also writes that, â€Å"The Boy is a black sailor who appears briefly, professing love for Jo.He asks her to marry him and gives her a ring. They spend a week together during Christmas, but then he leaves for a six month tour at sea.† The young author is able to demonstrate an extremely adult situation in an era where this type of behavior was not accepted in connecting with her audience and gaining their complete and undivided attention.To connect more closely with her viewers, Delaney used scenes that depicted more mature subject matter, in catching and maintaining their attention of the scenes in the play.Did Delaney’s audience respect her work as she linked with their personalities? We learn in her biography that a fan said, After seeing the first production of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey in May 1958, Lindsay Anderson said of the play in Encore: â€Å"To talk as we do about new working-class audiences, about plays that will interpret the common experiences of today-all this is one thing and a good thing too.†It is evident that Delaney cast a spell on her audience while reeling them in and capturing their full attention. They go on further to mention about the play, â€Å"A work of complete, exhilarating originality.† Delaney gained tremendous acceptance with her play and many individuals viewed and thought there was nothing else like the work that Delaney provided.Susan Whitehead offers that, â€Å"But, how much better even, how much more exciting, to find such theatre suddenly here, suddenly sprung up under our feet!†(p. 55-60) Delaney offered an exciting escape from reality in her play where people could gather and take in the scenes that Delaney offered for entertainment in order to grasp the affection of her audience.  Ã¢â‚¬Å"A Taste of Honey† is full of situations where the author left her audience in a gasp at her incredible imagination and thoughts on what life would be like if it were flip-flopped to something that was completely different than one would ever guess it to be.She is remarkable in her attempt to form situations that impress upons one’s theories and attitudes toward rules in society.

Cost Pools and Cost Objects

Topic 6: Management Accounting and Cost Case: Shelter Partnership a. My main learning outcomes from Topic 6 and the Case Study; 1)Firstly, I realize management accounting has much to offer. Somehow I can handle physics but not accounting. Now thanks to this course I can appreciate and make sense of it. The bit that really caught my attention was seeing how management accounting can be really useful for business planning, cost management, budgeting and performance measurement. It offers critical and more objective inputs for decision making. On my part, I would say this is one of my most important learning outcomes as it changed my personal view and outlook of accounting. 2)I have learnt that a good costing system is needed to get a better grip on the â€Å"actual† cost of my products and services. Gaining a better understanding of the Cost Pools (and the types of cost) and how these costs are allocated to the Cost Objects is a good starting point. 3)I realize that it is very important to identify and define the Cost Objects properly from the start. While I may like to define the Cost Objects narrowly, it should only be done to the extent it is economically viable. )I recognize that there are a number of ways to allocate indirect costs (from the Cost Pools) to the Cost Objects and these can cause distortion. It is therefore imperative to establish a meaningful and acceptable way of allocating such cost to better reflect the true cost. This leads to my next learning outcome. 5)Stephen Covey’s â€Å"begin wi th the end in mind† rings true here. If I had wanted to measure and analyze the Cost Objects by products, services and countries(Multinational Company), both the Cost Objects and the way cost is allocated needs to be defined early. In this case, a deeper engagement between my Marketing Department and the Finance Department is necessary to fine tune the costing system. 6)When looking at the cost numbers, it is imperative for me to consider and discern the context and assumptions used in arriving at the numbers since these are not â€Å"standardized†. b. Applying the learning outcomes to my own organization. 1)I work in a large IT company and my portfolio includes Marketing, Consulting and Strategic Account (Client) Management. In the area of Account Management, the company had recently implemented a system to track the profitability of each Client. In the case of revenues, it is a relatively simple process. However, getting a truer picture of the cost of providing professional services to each of our clients is a major challenge. In a sense, our client account is a â€Å"Cost Object†. 2)In a typical project undertaken for our client, professional services are provided by dynamically formed teams made up of Project Managers, Business Consultants, Senior Project Leads, Business Analysts, Programmers and Testers. Presently we are allocating cost to each of our clients according to the numbers of professional man-days consumed by the clients based on a â€Å"blended† man-day rate. The following is a simplified illustration of how cost is allocated. 3)We have room for significant improvements in the way we allocate cost. a. Labor cost which is a direct cost becomes a little complicated due to the project nature of the service. But since our systems captures the actual time-sheet for each employee according to projects, we should be able to eventually allocate labor cost directly to the Client, â€Å"Cost Objects† and give a truer reflection of cost. . Secondly, we should explore for more appropriate ways for allocating indirect cost such as travel & ticketing administrations and office space which is presently added into the blended rate. Since administration for travel and ticketing only applies to overseas projects, In-Country projects should not be â€Å"burdened† with t hese costs. Similarly, office space is only applicable for projects running out of our own premises and should not be loaded to projects undertaken at specific clients’ premises. At any one time around 50% of our staff is based outside of our office. )We found the shortcomings in cost allocation affects our decisions on pricing, discounts, expense provision, use of resources (especially when contending for resources), budgeting and business planning. 5)We have some multi-nationals clients, and I am curious about the effect of establishing overlapping â€Å"Cost Objects† to present a group/enterprise level view in addition to the present individual client level view. In our case, we have local offices in a number of countries and resource sharing is quite extensive, however no cost transfer has been allocated to the individual client account.

7 Tips for Writing a Poor Recommendation Letter

7 Tips for Writing a Poor Recommendation Letter You already know that writing a letter of recommendation is challenging. Weve talked about how to make it easier, specifically, what to ask of students, how to get started, and the characteristics of a good letter. A bad or poor letter of recommendation 1. Is neutral. Glowing letters of recommendation are the norm. A neutral letter is the kiss of death to a students application. If you cant write glowingly positive letter, dont agree to write on a students behalf because your letter will hurt more than help. 2. Has errors, such as typos and grammar mistakes. Errors suggest carelessness. How good a student is this if youre not willing to run his or her letter through a spell-check? 3. Discusses weaknesses without discussing strengths. If a student has an important weakness, you ca mention it, but remember to discuss many many strengths to balance it out. 4. Provides no examples or data to support statements. Why should the reader believe that a student is meticulous, for example, if you havent given an example to explain how? 5. Shows that the letter writer has little experience and contact with the student. Dont write letters for students you dont know. They will not be helpful letters. 6. Is not based on relevant academic or applied experiences. A letter for a student that you have had no academic or supervisor experience with will not help his or her application. Dont write for students who are friends or family members. 7. Is late. Sometimes incomplete applications are tossed after the deadline. Even the most fantastic letter will be of no help then.

The Millennial Generation and Brandi Carlile Essay

The Millennial Generation and Brandi Carlile - Essay Example This for sure will have positive effects on how families interact and communicate and how young people relate to school and learning. Considered to be the most diverse generation in history and born to the most diverse parents as well. Coates further notes that Generation Y combines the can-do attitude of Veterans, and the teamwork ethic of Boomers. For this group, the preferred learning environment combines teamwork and technology. In a classroom with lots of Gen Y's, give everyone a task. When a few have completed it, encourage them to walk around the room and help others. They're used to working this way in school. Presently, according to newspolitics.net, the Millennial Generation is larger than Baby Boomers, but how much bigger depends on where you put their beginning and ending birthdates which currently has no census. The report also stressed that like Boomers-the Millennial Generation will affect the country in various ways. ... Sophia Yan-author of understanding Generation Y stated that Members of Generation Y are characterized as being more racially and culturally tolerant than past generations. Gay rights and non-traditional gender roles have also become more widely accepted. Generation Y is ground-breaking in the sense that its members have come of age in a both a politically and socially tumultuous period with constant bombardment from various media outlets. As the first generation to have easy access to the Internet, ways of thinking have changed rapidly. As Generation Y goes to college and penetrates the work force, the landscape of America may change even more dramatically. Generation Y has been growing up in an increasingly diverse and multicultural society where barriers of race tend to be disappearing. According to the 2002 U.S. Bureau of the Census, 37.6 % of Generation Y, they are non-White (Strauss, 2004). Because of their diversity, The Millennial Generation is more accustomed to a wide range of global and cultural viewpoints, and their acceptance and tolerance is reflected in all areas of their lives, public as well as private. Characteristics of Generation Y The Millennial Generation has a specific set of characteristics (positive and negative) and personality traits that defines individuals of that era. 1. They have a closer relationship with parents and develop pure bond of admiration for their parents (33% names one or both parents as their hero, rather than a pop culture celebrity). 2. The small sphere of influence has contributed to the creation of a generation that is, in general, more polite and considerate than their predecessors. They are less likely to call adults by their first names, but rather use the more formal Mr. or Mrs. 3. Programmed and team

Korean Music Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Korean Music - Research Paper Example These sources offer more information pertaining to the music that was prevalent in the early days, although this has transformed over time making the present music contemporary in comparison to that from the ancient times. Currently, various groups have developed to direct to Kpop that has appreciably brought out transformations of the ancient music to music in the contemporary world (Allkpop). The attributes of this music give it the attributes of modern musical styles that bear no relation to the musical styles in the ancient times. Despite many transformations over the years, certain aspects of the old musical styles still exist to the current time. In accordance to Korean prosperous musical records that extended up to the fifteenth century, approximately six sources still exist. They hold over one hundred composers that offer the musical advancement within the Korean context a point of references. Korean music attracts interest to all people who may be students, musicians and mus icologist from different regions around the globe. This is because it presents some charm and beauty that is absent in most musical genres presented by other cultures. Practically, the pieces of music that still exist as well as song text have all been transcribed into different versions. However, these versions are still undertaken using the original tunes. Various pieces that were presented were undertaken as accompaniments or performed for court dances. Fifteenth century is deemed the renaissance period, since significant cultural advancements transpired during this epoch. Encouragement of developments in music and discovery of phonetic alphabets within the Korean context played a chief role in the elevation of the Korean music to the current state (Condit 13). This has been ascribed to King Sejong and is considered one of his greatest accomplishments. During this era, the music developed profoundly with the discovery of fresh arrangements of musical connotations. This arrangemen t or system enabled recording various components of the melodic and percussion instruments thus offering defined rhythm for various performed pieces. Progress in Korean music was achieved through continued interest that was shown by kings who succeed Sejong thus triggering refinement of notational systems introduced by the king (Condit 13). Consequently, music was made popular throughout the region offering it a part in undertaking of the Confucian rituals. Korean musical accounts commenced all through the fifth century and continued to develop throughout this interlude to the fifteenth century, which saw numerous developments in music. Colonization of Korea by their Japanese counterparts affected their music since it incorporated some Japanese aspects into their music. Splitting of Korea after WW1 is presented substantially in the music that Koreans adopted showing the divisions that occurred within the cultures. South Korea presented a vivacious and stylistically all-embracing mus ical verve compared to the other division that occurred after splitting of the Korean peninsula (Condit 13). Conversely, North Korea presented banal, which is official music that contained aspects of westernized style of light music. Korean customary music consists of various strands with the most formal strands being court, religious and aristocratic music. Court