Speaker: Miss Ivy Chiu, Associate Director, Learning and Development Specialist

Topic: Self Leadership

Miss Chiu share her own story as a trainer. She study economics and mathematics in her university but she landed her first job in the bank. Then, she moved on to the sales field and met a boss who appreciate her very much and asked her to train the other sales. At that time, balancing between her sales and role as a trainer was quite a challenge for her. Later on, she used her year-break to tell other her dedication on being a trainer and eventually she found her way to become who she wanted to be.

Other than her story, she also share a few model to inspire the students. She explained Johari Window to encourage student to understand themselves and open up about themselves for others ; Iceberg Model to tell students’ own belief and mindset can affect our behaviour, and thus affect the outcome. ; Growth mindset to encourage student to embraces challenges, persist in obstacles, see effort as necessary, learn from criticism and inspire by others’ success.

Lastly, she also mentioned “Leader is made but not born” to encourage students to make improvement and become a good leader.

Speaker: Miss Jessica Tse, Director, Colliers International

Topic: Embrace Yourself in your Early Career

Miss Tse share some 3 tips for students when they are hunting for jobs after graduation.

1. How to find a suitable job.

She asked 3 questions: a) What am I good at? b) What do people tell me I am good at? c) What is holding you back? To get out of their comfort zone and be bold to explore the unknown. She also stated the pros and cons of Management Trainee Program and remind student to ask more questions before joining the program because MT program may not be able to cover all the departments in 24-month of training.

2. How to success in interview

She strongly advise student to be authentic and be their true self during interview. Interviewer is more experienced and they will know the authenticity of your saying. Also, be authentic can avoid the boss being deviated between expectation and reality. For example, a new employee stated that he is very good at excel, but when the boss asked him to create a pivot table, he didn’t know how. The boss might feel disappointed in this case.

How to success in probation period.

She encourage students to develop a proactive attitude with these 8 keywords.

1. Proactiveness, try to take the initiative to ask and participate.
2. Love to learn,
3. Be humble, try to appreciate others and learn from them
4. Collaboration, try to collaborate with your co-worker and make greater effort together.
5. Enterprising, treat the company like you are the owner and help the company gets better
6. Make Mistakes and try again, it is very common for freshmen to make mistakes in the first year and try to be positive when facing failure
7. Relationship, don’t be afraid to suffer loss when helping others, sometimes giving is more important than taking
8. Observant, pay attentions to others needs and emotions, give support whenever needed.

She recommended a meaningful reading called The First 90 Days by Michael D. Watkins as a guide book for students to prove their worth when they are in probation period.

Lastly, she said ‘Be yourself and do not compare with others, because everyone is special’ as an encouragement for students who are going to step into the society.

Speaker: Dr. Lam Chak Fu, Assistant Professor, City University of Hong Kong

Topic: Why Study Management?

Dr. Lam compare the functions of management in business field with other major such as Accounting and Finance to tell  importance of studying Management in different job level. The crucialness of the ability to socialize and work with others rise as the job level grow according to skill curve. And studying Management can help student to learn how to solve people problems, such as how to motivate, work and interact with others.

Speaker: Mr. Brian Chan, Director, Sunwa Marketing

Topic: Leading to Grow, Growing to lead

He share 3 mindsets to students.

1. Do

It is hard for freshmen  in the first couple years. He encourage students don't be afraid to suffer loss when helping others because it can help others and build trust with others. People can see where you talent lies.

2. Courage

He encourage student to be bold to take up the lead to solve problems. He recalled his company used to face a huge difficulty. At that time, he could hide in the back and leave the problem to someone else. Yet he had the courage to stand up, be the centre of the storm and lead the rest of the manager to resolve the problem.

3. Find yourself

He shared his experience when he is studying a course about knowing himself in Harvard University. The course required him to draw a path of life about what he had done in the his past. He couldn’t draw much in  the beginning, but as the course went, he filled up his path of life with many things he had done. Through this activity, he understands his experience in his life can shape the kind of leader he would become and form authentic leadership.

Lastly, he encourage students to embrace these 3 mindset and full up their path of life and be an international leader.

Speaker: Mr. Victor Ching, Founder & Executive Director, Solar Vision (Group) Co. Ltd.

Topic: 3 Tips to Share – Be a Great Leader

Mr. Ching shared 3 tips to become a great leader.

1. What is your passion

He encourage student to love their job and find the job they love based on their personality. Also they

need to do the job right, the others will notice their hard work. He shared his own business story with

the student. Most of his clients were come from referral because he had built up a positive reputation for his business and treat every customer with his passion toward his job.

2. Ask

Develop a positive attitude. He shared his story in a huge company listed in fortune 100. After a scandal was exposed, the company had to lay off  all the colleague in his department. And the day he receive this new was exactly the last day of his probation period. Later on, he got into another company which is a training company. He had a long working hours and needed to prepare many material for training. The journey was tough but he is very grateful about his boss because he provide him with many training in a very short period. So he encourage student not to be afraid of suffering losses because they may learn a lot in the middle.

3. Networking

He strongly advised student to use LinkedIn to connect with other professionals. Because student will

face more social problems than technical problems when they become a manager in the future.

therefore they need to learn how to deal with different social problem by socializing with different

people.

Speaker: Miss Janet Lau, HR and Admin, Methodist Centre

                Miss Karen Lau, Consultant, Connect Group

                Mr. Nelson Wong, Human Resources, ImagineX Group

                Mr. Wilson Wu, Human Resources Manager, HP

Interviewer: Dr. Andy Kwan, Instructor, City University of Hong Kong,

                    Mr. Victor Ching, Founder & Executive Director, Solar Vision (Group) Co. Ltd.

Q: Any tips for students?

A: Keep learning and improve yourself. You can achieve your goal one day. Also, set a higher goal and chance will come one day;

The most important is attitude because freshmen just start working so they will face many failure;

Be yourself and confident. Everyone can reach the goal;

Be humble. Everyone has their strength. Build up a positive image in the company.

Q: Tips specifically for year 1 student?

A: Join some extracurricular activity and get to know more new friends from other departments;

Can try different job through part time work and see if it  suit your career path;

Grasp any chance, try to get into the society;

Explore different field in the first couple of years (after graduation).

Q: A memorable challenge after you graduated

A:

1. Janet, as an HR administrator, needed to handle issue related to construction work. But she don’t know much about construction related matter such as their jargon. She had a hard time balancing between learning and following up  construction related matter and handling daily HR routine.

2. Logistic Department has a high turnover rate. Wilson needed to take care logistic function and implement policy to lower the turnover rate. Also, different department has their own culture and he felt quite confusing sometimes.

3. Nelson landed his first job as a trainer. But some he found out this job is not suitable for him, so he worked as an HR later on in another company. He was a little bit worry at that time because most of his friend has been working in HR field for 1-2 years already.

Later on he receive an offer which he need to go Philippine to and set up new center. He boldly took the challenge and realize HK and Philippine staff have different culture. Staff in Philippine are very nice.

4. When Karen worked as a recruitment consultant when she graduated, she didn’t know much about the industry. So she needed to be very active and learn new things every day and it is very time consuming.

Q: The difference between NGO vs Private co. (Janet)

A: NGO was funded by government so the information must be very transparent. NGO need to set strict criteria for different things such as wages. There are many rules and regulations to follow, especially for HR. But in NGO HR can learn genuine step and procedure when handling HR routine.

Q: Balance work life and interest? (Nelson)

A: Nelson loves to participate in marathon, especially in Japan. He used running and the scenery he saw to relieve pressure at work. And running in Japan is an motivation for him to work.

Q: What is a consultant? (Karen)

A: There are 3 types of recruitment consulting agency.

1. Search for one large event and need to hire many part time worker.
2. Middle to senior search. Find suitable applicant for specific industry. E.g. legal, account and finance etc.
3. Executive search. Usually look for applicant with C-level such as CEO, CFO, Principal etc.

This is a very challenging industry because it has many people issue. Client come back to you based on your expertise and yourself. So personal branding is very important and need to keep learning.

Q: How to be a high flyers? (Wilson)

A: It depends on chances given by bosses and the attitude. Wilson keep a growth mindset and set a very high goal for himself. He had planned to learn different skill at different time. And he take personal branding as a business and promote himself in different occasion.

Q: Accounting service in HR. (Nelson)

A: Accounting service for HR is to look over teams of people and deal with their issue. HR is responsible to resolve all the problems appear from they get enter the company to their leave.