Career Ideas for Business

Introduction

It is now past three days since I conducted my first interview as part of the Intercultural communication and Global citizenship program and fortunately. I learned a lot the hard way about this daunting process. I was fortunate enough to get another chance to conduct a second interview, and I must say I have had a great time and learned more than just the basics of my interview exercise. We learn by trial, and with more effort, I have emerged from this process with some few insights that I would like to present in this paper.

First Interview

The first person I interviewed was Omar Abdul, a freshman student at the University of La Trobe Australia. Omar is one of my classmates in the course unit ‘Intercultural Communication and Global Citizenship.' His plans include majoring in Business Administration, with the aim of having a successful company of his, someday. I, therefore, felt interested in knowing Omar’s background and the reason behind his decision to major in B.A, so I decided to interview him. I began my first interview just like most interviews, asking the subject about their background details, such as where they come from, about their current life and how they consider life in campus to become. My first step was to find out more about the interviewee, so I asked him to tell me about himself. It turns out that Omar is from Saudi Arabia, was born in 1996 and spent most of his childhood in his native homeland always hoping to become a wealthy businessman in future. The challenging question to him came when I asked: “how do you encourage intercultural relations among peers?” Omar affirms much of what he had experienced while growing up about his perceptions of being interpreted differently when he used to visit his relatives in the US. He thus emphasized the importance of having an open mindset and be willing to accept any opportunity that presented itself in life. “I am always willing to try new things in life,” he says. “There are always new opportunities to learn, new challenges to face, and new things to discover. There is still much we do not know” he concluded. Upon reviewing his comments, I now realize we start by considering our own cultural identities, the role of family and friends in shaping our identity. As we begin to explore understandings through interactions, and readings, we can be surprised by just how much there is still left to explore (Colvin, Volet, and Fozdar, 2014). I then proceeded to ask him a series of questions relating to the decision to come to the University of La Trobe, when there are several other colleges in Saudi Arabia and even in Australia. I asked him “Why do you feel the University of La Trobe is the best choice for you?” He started by saying that he joined the university to gain exposure, away from the ethical conflict that hindered his career development back at home. The second and most critical response was because of the highly recognized accreditation body of Australia that would mean his qualifications are recognized globally. To Omar, and indeed many other students, both local and international, it is an honor to study at the University of La Trobe. The initial question sparked many other questions as the interview progressed and I feel my knowledge and confidence had definitely grown as a result of this experience. Though it proved a challenge at first, the experience after the first interview was both relieving and reassuring to note that I had at least achieved some progress. Conducting this interview helped me realize the advantage of smaller issues which we take for granted, that would otherwise change our lives for the better if we took them seriously (Berry, 1999). After graduating, Omar plans to join the corporate world and apply the knowledge he has acquired into helping large corporations with administrative tasks and oversight roles as he looks forward to gain experience of owning his own corporation. His vision is to one day work for a big company, specifically, big banks such HSBC or any firm that operates in the financial markets. While conducting the interview, I noticed that Omar is a very focused individual who knows what he wants to achieve in life. He credits much of the motivation to his hard working mother who is the greatest motivation in his life.

Second Interview

Conducting an interview is an essential element for the development of my communication skills, in spite of also helping me develop my professional skills. In this respect, I find it important to conduct interviews that evoke the trust and confidence of the person I am interviewing (Neuliep, 2017). By preparing questions that evoke trust and understanding, I am able to develop positive interpersonal relationships, or at least, be able to influence the interviewee to provide more information so that I can learn more about him or her from the interview. Secondly, I find it necessary to start an interview with a clear idea of what I am going to cover (Doody and Noonan, 2013). Thus, my second interview, I designed the interview questions in such a way that would allow me to find out more about the personality, life experience, and knowledge. One idea that I realized from my first interview was the need to find out if the person I was interviewing could back up their previous answers. This meant that I had to frame questions which compel the interviewee to explain how they view or handle different situations, using examples from past experiences (Jacob and Furgerson, 2012). I believe this will be the most productive questions in my interviews since they will enable me to obtain answers that reveal insights into the capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses of the person I am interviewing. In the second interview, I interrogated Mrs. Rebecca Fuller, a Certified Public Accountant, who also happens to be the mother of Neil Fuller, my childhood friend. I first began to get interested in Mrs. Fuller’s knowledge when we used to play with Fuller during school holidays. Interviewing her at a professional level,  not only provided me with an opportunity to develop my skills but also reminded me of old memories that offered great inspiration to continue working towards the journey of completing my course. I, unfortunately, did not bump into a chance of interviewing Mrs. Fuller on campus, but I did interview her at her workplace after visiting her. My first question after settling down was about her interest in the profession, and she began to state how she had always been good with numbers and enjoyed the business part of accounting. At one point during the interview, Mrs. Fuller stated that “the financial reward that the accounting profession could offer was the major factor that inspired her.” This shows that apart from taking pleasure in doing her job, the accounting profession also contributes to her well-being as well as her family, financially. Mrs. Fuller contends that she became interested in accounting career by working with different firms and meeting different kinds of business people who helped open doors for her, enabling her to venture into other businesses too. She replied that she enjoyed meeting new business individuals every day, and most important, having a business venture of her own. As someone who has experienced it, Mrs. Fuller contends that being self-employed provides a person with great flexibility (Benz and Frey, 2008) saying that “I can work on my own time and run my business how I see fit.” He also mentions that “there is nothing like being your boss.” However, her greatest satisfaction comes from helping small businesses become successful. She provides smaller firms with valuable pieces of advice, such as how to manage their money wisely and by avoiding careless decisions. With this comment, I also felt interested in starting and running my own company, due to the great flexibility and benefits, despite the fact that it also gives one a great feeling of accomplishment. It is a fact that getting a degree to become a Certified Public Accountant is not an easy task, but Mrs. Fuller’s responses seem to be quite legit given her understanding of the industry and the standards she upholds. Although she does acknowledge that the industry also has its challenges, overall, Mrs. Fuller is a dedicated woman, who enjoys her occupation as much as her career. She takes pride in seeing the people she has assisted becoming successful, and this gives her the strength to keep going. Throughout all the interviews I conducted, I received and acknowledged several interesting issues. I had the chance to interview two great people, Omar Abdul, a fellow hardworking student and Mrs. Fuller, an accountant. The two individuals I interviewed had unique and insightful words to say about life, and the important ideas to consider in order to become successful. Fortunately, I was able to ask both participants about their first inspirations and motivations, and unsurprisingly, all of them are driven by the desire to be successful in life. For instance, both participants view the notion of having or owning a business as one of the biggest achievements due to the various benefits that it provides the owner.

Conclusion

The responses in these interviews are exactly in compliance with my perceptions on how people from diverse communities should communicate. The outcomes of this process have greatly strengthened my experience, and I will continue to practice and improve my interpersonal as well as communication skills. As a result of the interview process, I have learned the importance of effective communication that I believe will be valuable in my future interactions and Career.

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