【GHRM MBA】Internship at the HRM department of NXP Semiconductors Taiwan

During the second semester at NSYSU, GHRM MBA students had the unique opportunity to gain practical work experience in the HR field through the cooperation with a local company. Each team consisted of 2-4 students and a professor as a supervisor in order to guide through this project. My team and Professor Chi (our supervisor) worked with NXP Semiconductors Taiwan which is located in the Nanzhi Export Processing Zone in Kaohsiung. 

NXP is a global semiconductor manufacturer which creates solutions that enable secure connections for a smarter world. NXP operates in 25 countries and employs approximately 45,000 people worldwide. At the end of 2015, NXP acquired the American company Freescale Semiconductor. 

The goal of the cooperation between NXP Semiconductors and GHRM students was to identify important managerial competencies in order to create a comprehensive competency model for the management team of NXP as well as to conduct a training needs analysis to develop potential training programs. 

After the successful completion of this project, the manager of the HRM department offered me a summer internship position. It was the first time the HRM department offered an internship position to a foreign student. 

I’m grateful for not only having the chance to experience student life in Taiwan, but also to gain an insight into the Taiwanese working culture. 

My projects included the development of a customized comprehensive competency model including hard skills and soft skills for the engineering department of NXP. In light of this, I also developed an outline of customized training programs, specifically, for the engineering department. In addition, I assisted in the creation of a new HR recruiting strategy. I was also allowed to engage in discussions and contribute to decisions via weekly HRM meetings, international conference calls, NXP training days and Town Hall meetings. 

During the internship I had the unique chance to observe the transition of NXP as a single company to the merger of NXP and Freescale and to see how they created a new company culture combined of Eastern and Western values that reaches consensus among all of them. This summer the American management team visited NXP in Kaohsiung to give the local management team and employees the opportunity to get informed about the new outline and goal of this merger. I was lucky to attend meetings, conferences as well as business dinners with the American HRM managers to also gain an insight into the American point of view in regards to the role of human resource management. I developed a much deeper understanding in terms of the importance of aligning the HR strategy with the overall business strategy of the company. 

Throughout the internship, I was happy to see how much knowledge I was able to apply from my studies at the GHRM program. In addition, I also gained new knowledge throughout the projects which will be helpful for my future studies at NSYSU as well as for my future HR career. 

I cheer the new GHRM MBA students to use the Independent Study project to expand their local business network and create internship opportunities. The majority of the business companies pay close attention whether the future employee candidate has gained practical work experience related to the major. Therefore, I encourage everyone to find an internship position during the next summer. Make the summer count!