On
March 10, 2013 at precisely 12:45 PM, I have met professor Carlos Santos for an
interview regarding his past position. Santos was very helpful with me, as he
have gave me more than I asked for as an interviewer. Advices, guidelines, and
directions to find the right path on becoming a successful individual in my
field. Professor Santos have studied in different fields in order to be the
successful man, he first went through accounting in the bachelors degree, after
that he took his MBA from university of Arizona in research marketing. Not only
that, Santos has also combined psychology with them to understand people and
become better in communication. Through out the interview, he answered my
questions with the best answers he can give, and we have also discussed and
talked in depth.
When
I asked Professor Santos if he was truly contended with the majors he has
picked, his answer was yes, because it all depends on which path a student
wants to take after graduation. Santos seemed to have planned his studying
career from the beginning, where he went to accounting in order to know where
all the numbers in business came from. Second, he wanted to get a masters
degree in exploration of research
marketing in order to take advantage of his bachelors degree of accounting to
properly use the numbers in marketing. Last was the study of phycology to have
understand people well and their behavior.
Then I asked if he would recommend students to pursue the same degree he
got in, and the answers came back to it all depends on what an individual
wants. I understood that every other person has his own ambitions and dreams.
Santos
past position was a market researcher in a big firm, HP. As he says, his
position is very time consuming. He worked anywhere from 12-14 hours a day.
Santos also added that he traveled a lot during the year, in fact, he used to
spend 220 days a year in hotel rooms instead of his own house. Anywhere from 2
to 3 weeks a months, he was out of the state he used to live in. Santos told me
that one of the main reasons that made him leave his job was the fact the he
was always away from family. Although HP allowed him to have an in home office
to work in, he still had to leave home a lot. He said that it was fun at the
beginning of his career but after that it becomes very tiring and boring. The
worst times for him to travel was during the summers, and the reason for that
is because during the summer many children are in the airports where they made
the airport process slower than it usually should be. Last he said that culture
is a very important in the reason for him leaving his job, as he was Hispanic,
family was very important to him and it was a must to spend time with them.
The
pros of santos’s job was the variety of companies that he could work with. For
instance, his project that he might be working in was a smartphone, but 2
months later he might be working with another company that sells cars such as
Toyota. There was always something new to work in through out the years. The
second thing that he admired with his position was the people that he worked
with,santos described them as the leaders in their field. Working with people
that was vey successful made him work harder and harder to make the company
realize that he really fits in the place, and he that he really want to be
successful. We then jumped to the cons of his position, the first thing he told
me was the amount of travel. Although going to many cool places such as eruope,
asia, and states, it was tiring. Santos also told me that one day he had
breakfast in Geneva, lunch in Paris, and dinner in Rome. That’s how tiring the
job was because of the places he had to go to meet people in the business he
was in. He insisted that it was time comsuming and needed a lot of time
management in order to get the job done right. The second negative thing Santos
mentioned was the fact the he used to work very hard in the project he was
given; yet, he was not able to see how the whole project was put together. For
example, if he was to market a product, he could not see how the whole product
was put together and the exposed to people. He just knew the part he was
assigned to do.
The
interesting and motivating interview was about to come to end, but before that
I wanted to explore more about the business world. I had a couple of questioned
that I have previously planned to ask, and they were about my field. Since
Professor Santos has worked many years in the business, I figured out the he
knew what strengths I needed to develop while I am still in my college years.
But before going to that, I would like to state the things that made this
interview very pleasant to me was the fact the I could freely confess my
weaknesses without worrying. I have confessed to Professor Santos that I did
poor in time management, and since I am an international student and English
was not my first language, communication was a bit struggle to me. He
definitely advised me to practice time management because it is one of the
factors that determine one’s success, and develop communication skills. I also
was curious in knowing if having the ability to speak more than one language
was an advantage. He agreed and he told me that knowing more than a language
always made things easier to deal with. Santos has worked in many different countries,
and he tried very hard in learning multiple words from different languages. He
gave me an example of how many Europeans have that advantage, because in Europe
many countries teach many different language in high school. So it made
communication in Europe very easy and convenient. Other things I explored in
the interview with professor Santos was the courses that I needed to
concentrate on while in college. He absolutely guided me well in what courses I
had to work hard on.
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