《111-1 GHRM508 Course Speech》 Inside the mind of a Project manager: Guest lecture by Johnny Chen, Marketing Project Manager, HP

Knowledge and experience delivered by someone with similar background, skills, and goals are always beneficial and inspiring for us because they come from someone who was once in the same situation as we are now. One of these people is Johnny Chen, marketing product manager at HP (Hewlett-Packard), who visited Dr. Ryan Brading’s “Business Ethics and Social Responsibility” class at NSYSU to share his journey with the students.

When it comes to the amount and quality of the information provided, it is very hard to beat Johnny, since he has worked for very big and strong companies (such as ASUS and now HP) in 3 countries (Taiwan, China, and Thailand). Johnny provided an in-depth honest summary of what life in each country and working for each company looks like, he compared the working environment and conditions in HP and ASUS, and he was not afraid of any questions coming towards him from the students.

Everyone was genuinely interested in the presentation and asked Johnny additional questions regarding culture shocks, working culture, but also free time, food, and so on. Johnny answered every question very passionately and positively, so the benefit of this sharing was above all standards. He also mentioned some useful tips about customizing the CV and the job interview.

Toward the end, Johnny added more value to the lecture by designing an activity, which focused on hiring new people in the company, which is the ultimate goal for the Global Human Resources Management MBA program at NSYSU. The activity was based on a real-life situation in HP where Johnny works, which made it even more professional and helpful. When HP was hiring a marketing intern, they had three candidates to decide between. Johnny provided all three resumés to the students so they could decide whom they would have hired if they were in the hiring manager’s shoes. After a brief group discussion, we had a vote, and the majority of the students would select the same candidate as who was hired in reality.

Everyone enjoyed the guest lecture, namely because of its big connection to other students’ situations since Johnny is an NSYSU graduate, setting a great role model for others who now know that they can achieve similarly amazing things as he has, and the interactivity during the last part which was the resume study practice.

Last week Johnny spent some time sharing his personal internship and working experiences in different countries. It was fruitful. Aside from that information, we had a small exercise at the end of the speech: pick one resume from three candidates as if we are recruiting someone to Johnny's company. It was a lot of fun, and we stimulated the decisions we may make in the future. So that was quite useful, too.

– Stephanie Liu, 1st-year GHRM MBA student

The lecture is very important and exciting, Johnny taught us many things about real-life work in various countries. Johnny also mentioned some important things about recruitment, creating a solid CV, and talent from a business perspective. Overall it is a good lecture and he brought the materials in an exciting way.

– Daryl Andrian, 1st-year GHRM student

It was a very great honor to join in a lecture provided by a full-of-experience guest. Johny has distributed practical experiences working overseas, not only in the professional aspect but also in the cultural aspect, the actual states of living in that certain countries as an ex-pat. In addition, the resume evaluation practice encourages HR skills in assessment.

– Pyo Lin, 1st-year GHRM student