Blog Post #3

Application Letter Critique

Recruitment advert: http://www.capitaland.com/en/gdp/programme-overview.html

(2nd Draft)

Chua Jie Ying
BLK 123 #12-34, Lorong 1 ABC Land, Singapore 123456

February 20, 2013

The Hiring Manager,
Human Resource Department,
CapitaLand Limited,
168 Robinson Road, #30-01 Capital Tower, Singapore 068912

Dear Hiring Manager,

Application for Graduate Development Programme (GDP) Trainee

I am writing to express my interest in joining the CapitaLand GDP, an opportunity I learnt about through the National University of Singapore (NUS) Career Fair which appealed to me immensely.  I am expected to graduate from NUS with a 2^nd Upper Class Honours in Mechanical Engineering in May 2013. I am keen to start my career with CapitaLand because of its unique credo of Building People which provides continuous development and career progression within a dynamic business environment. I am intrigued by its steadfast mindset to conduct its business, interact with stakeholders and contribute to the well-being of its employees and the community in a responsible and ethical way. I would love to be part of this multi-local organization to contribute to its core value of value adding through innovation and continuous improvement.

Assuming the role as a NUS Student Union Account Manager, I was tasked to liaise with DBS Bank for sponsorships. During my term, I collaborated with DBS Bank for their participation in various school events and reached out to student masses to achieve exceeding DBS NUS Debit Card signups which enabled me in securing an additional sponsorship of $10,000 from DBS on top of the basic sponsorship of $20,000 per contractual year.  This post certainly provided me the opportunities to hone my interpersonal communication and negotiation skills.

During my Junior College years, I was actively involved in school activities, taking up 3 CCAs and one of which displayed my great passion to serve the College was through the role as a Student Council. Apart from being a very enthusiastic vice house captain in uniting my cluster, I was the overall in-charge for National Day Celebrations organizing committee. Together with my team, we successfully pulled off the major college event in a memorable and novel way. I was also deeply committed to building a strong Council by mentoring and guiding my juniors closely even after I stepped down from office. With these commitments and excellence, I was awarded the College Values Award for “Service with Honour”.

A career at CapitaLand will definitely give me the opportunity to perform and learn across geographies and gain valuable exposure to various functions across different units. Additionally, this programme, to which meaningful and challenging tasks are assigned, appeals to my career aspirations and personal development. Given a chance, with my outgoing personality and positive work attitude displayed in my previous roles, I am confident of developing my potential to the fullest with CapitaLand’s GDP and contribute back in building a sustainable better future for the stakeholders, not just for this generation, but for generations to come. I look forward to grow with the learning opportunities offered at CapitaLand.

Thank you for your time to review my application. I have enclosed my resume for your consideration. I look forward to a face-to-face interview with you to discuss my qualifications and how I can be of service to your company. I can be contacted at (+65) xxxxxxxx or jieying.email@gmail.com at your convenience.

Yours sincerely,
Jie Ying

Blog Post #2

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

 

Interpersonal conflict is an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from others in achieving their goals. (Wilmot and Hocker, 2001) One such situation is recently experienced between my aunt, Annie, and her in-laws.

This started last year in June, when Annie’s mother-in-law fell down due to old age weakened knees and had to be admitted to the hospital. For the past centuries, Annie’s mother-in-law had been residing at her second son, Ben’s, house. Hence, being the eldest daughter-in-law, Annie decided to take some responsibility by initiating to take care of her mother-in-law for the first two weeks after the elderly had discharged from the hospital to help her in recuperating to her original state and ability to be independent again.

Indeed, after two weeks, Annie’s mother-in-law recovered and went back to Ben’s house to live. She was even fit enough to return to her workplace. However, not long later, she fell again at home in November. This time round the tension within the family heightened. The family members knew that this time the situation worsened and the elderly would need someone to pay more attention and care to her. Instead of coming up with a win-win solution amongst the children to take care of their old aged mother, Ben and his wife began shirking responsibility by saying that they had been staying and putting up with the elderly for so many years, and now it should be the time when the other children play a part too. In addition, they had in mind to take this opportunity to kick the elderly out of their house, which they initially got it at priority and discounted rate under the government policy to reside with parents.

Annie soon became very stressed and lost at what to do because even the two sister-in-laws were shirking off their responsibility in putting in a fair share of effort as they began to feign illnesses and discomforts to excuse themselves from bringing their mother for her regular check-ups. To make matters worse, Annie’s mother-in-law took sides with her daughters and shielded them by preaching the traditional idea that daughters married are spilled water, and it should be daughter-in-laws’ duty to take care of her.

From Annie’s stand:

She had to take care of her own mother too, who recently went for an eye operation, as her side of the family adopts the modern way thinking that the responsibility of taking care of the elderly should be equally distributed among her own children. Hence, Annie tried to propose a solution whereby her mother-in-law will continue to live with Ben, while the duty of taking the elderly out for leisure purposes and medical check-ups will be distributed amongst her and her two other sister-in-laws. She did not mind helping her overly worked husband to take care of his mother so long as the distribution of effort is made fair. Furthermore, she had her own grandson due soon to take care of.

From two sister-in-laws’ stand:

They felt they should not shoulder any responsibility, following the traditional way of thinking. They felt that the eldest daughter-in-law should be the one who is dutiful for the situation.

From Ben and his wife’s stand:

They felt that they had been living with her and taking care of her the past years and they should be given the opportunity to regain freedom, hence, they were bent on residing the elderly somewhere else, either Annie’s place, a rented room or the old age home.

However, Annie could not take her mother-in-law in to stay with her as her house was way too small to accommodate another person. She felt that if Ben really have to move the elderly out of his house, the elderly should go to stay with her second daughter, since she owns a landed house with extra room available. Matters escalated when Ben put words into Annie’s mouth by telling his mother that Annie suggested putting her into the old age home when the idea was actually initiated by Ben.

After staying one month in the hospital, no concrete solution was taken and Annie’s mother-in-law continued to reside at Ben’s place. This issue had caused much tension in the family due to unwillingness from each party to compromise based on circumstances. During this Chinese New Year visiting, as we were house hopping, I could sense the awkwardness among the four siblings and the interactions made were no longer as harmonious and happy-sounding as the past years.

Thus, I would like to ask you readers how should Annie resolve the matter should it be triggered again.

Thank you for reading!