- Complete the 10 project activities and have the portfolio ready within a week of the due date. 

- Take 1 leadership course and take on a project as a leader during the next 6 months. 

- Create at least two job connections during the next 3 months of internship. 

 

In this activity, what I did was to create three objectives that I consider important for my personal and work development. In this case, I took elements of my life that I consider that must be achieved and that I should already set as goals. First, I took as a starting point the realization of this project, which, although it may seem repetitive, is something that is important to me at this moment. On the other hand, I analyzed the personal factors that I consider that I must improve in order to be able to develop as a good student and professional. This activity impacted me in several ways, since I got to know more about my way of thinking and my preferences. To begin with, I can notice that I am a person who is interested in focusing on elements that are urgent or short term. That is to say, at the moment of setting the objective of this project, it strikes me to understand that I am attentive and interested in short-term moments. On the other hand, I am also struck by the way I think about myself, since I am aware and concerned about the capabilities I have and more than anything about how I should improve. It is a point of reflection how long it took me to think about these objectives, since I had to generate a critical analysis about my situation and how I really wanted to see myself in the future. 

            

Flow is a state whereby a person is completely immersed in an activity in such a way that there is a balance between the difficulty of the task and his or her abilities. Therefore, in the week between October 18 and October 31 I managed to identify several activities that I was in the state of flow. First of all, on October 18 I was in the office at my internship and I was in an activity that made me feel in flow. That activity was during the organization of the Business Officer School, which is a training. In that organization, I lost track of time and was caught up in the activity. In the same way, I managed to feel this flow on October 22nd, in this case, it was during the development of excel documents on the attendance control of the bank's training. I managed to feel the same as the previous activity, I was very concentrated, I did not notice the time, and I worked fluently and with pleasure. In the following week, I had some moments that I was in a state of flow. This time it was during the consolidation of the results of the trainings. The activity went from tabulating data to entering the results. 

 

This activity impacted me a lot because I got to know in which moments and doing which things I have more ease and pleasure in working. I was surprised that they are with jobs that require working with excel and generating databases. On the other hand, it is shocking to know that I feel flow with activities related to the management and organization of activities. That is, I learned that I like to manage and be active in projects. 

In this activity, I focused on reviewing what I do during a week and collecting information about how I spend my time. That is why I took a notebook with me during the week of November 8 to November 14 to write down everything I did in each hour. From Monday to Friday you can find patterns of behavior, in this case from 8:30 to 3:30 I performed work activities. Among these were, delivering reports, making Excel documents, being present at meetings and other work activities. Always during these days between 12:30pm and 1:30pm I took an hour for lunch. After 3:30pm the activities varied depending on the day of the week. That is, as I am working and studying the activities I performed changed according to the demand of homework in that week. I could see that after 3:30 pm I did spend my time on my cell phone and resting. On average for the week I spent 2 and a half hours on the cell phone and 1 and a half hours on the road per day. To give a rating of my activities, the ones I spend in the office give me an average of 8 positive points, which indicates that I enjoy the time I spend working in the office. On the other hand, university activities give me 3 points, which indicates that I like to continue studying, but that I am already anxious to graduate. Among the rest activities, I get an average of 9 points, since I feel that rest time is important and that it brings me peace and tranquility. 

Doing this activity impacted me a lot about what I do in my day to day life. I managed to understand that I do spend a lot of time on unhelpful activities such as being on the cell phone. Although, I was struck by the idea that if I am in the 7 hours of work if I dedicate all my attention to the tasks I am doing. That is, if I manage well in office hours and work organization. Taking this into account, I can reflect that I feel a lot of pleasure for what I am doing now and it is a great guide for me and what I would like to do in the future. On the other hand, it was striking the tidiness that I managed that week, that is, that I recognize an ability in which I can keep focused on other things while I manage to be aware of the time and other activities that I have to do. 

For this activity, I already had my resumé done, but I focused on being able to improve it and have it have the most important elements and with updated information. In the first place, I made an effort to make sure that the information is updated and according to the new experiences I have had. Secondly, what I did was to improve the presentation and design of the document so that it is consistent with my professional profile. That is why I decided to use more neutral colors that show seriousness. Next, I presented my resume to two people who are experts in this subject. The first person I showed was Andrea Peñaherrera, who is a professor in the internship program at USFQ. The recommendations she gave me was to look for homogeneity in the spaces between sentences, to distribute in a descending way the timeline of studies, experience and social responsibility. 

The second person I showed was Eva Benitez, who is a professor of management principles, and what she indicated to me was that the form of the resume is fine. That it presents the correct information and with a design that is in accordance with the career. At the time of doing this activity, I was struck by the way in which the details of the resume affect the professional presentation of a person. In addition, it showed me that I like work that is organized and that demonstrates seriousness. That is to say, I am a person who is oriented to formal environments and quality work. On the other hand, I consider it important to reflect that I liked the process of creating the resume and studying its components. Therefore, it is a sign that I can be oriented to work in human resources processes such as personnel selection and recruitment.

xmontenegro@solidario.fin.ec

I interviewed Ximena Montenegro because she is my boss and has worked for many years in management and human talent positions. I hope to understand what it is like to work in an office and how to grow in large companies. I was able to identify this contact because she is my boss during my internship. Therefore, it was a person-to-person contact. 

The main thing I learned from the interview is three things. In the first place, is that one in the company must understand what career plan should be followed, therefore, train in the skills and knowledge that these positions require. On the other hand, we also discussed that in my context, the best way to continue in companies is to look for a job and then continue studying in order to have the experience. Finally, that the job of human talent management requires knowing a lot about the processes and knowing how to deal with people. The aspects that were not discussed in the interview but I could identify is that it is a job with high pressure, but that causes a lot of satisfaction. From what I observed, I could see a happiness when she told me what she has achieved. From what he told me, the interview made me feel confident and motivated to continue along the line of administration and human talent management. Therefore, I can conclude that after the interview I am interested in this line of work, because I find interesting the way in which processes and organization affect the lives of all employees. 

This interview helped me a lot in understanding management and human resources jobs. What I liked is that the aspects of knowing how to manage human talent processes greatly affect human talent management. What I value about this type of work is the effect that human resources have on the business of companies. What I will continue to do is to work in various areas of human talent, in order to understand through experience what line of work to follow.

sbermeo@solidario.fin.ec

I selected Santiago Bermeo for the interview because he is the director of Banco Solidario; the company where I do my internships, which allows me to have a very objective access to the functions of psychology and management. What I was hoping to learn in this interview was how companies are run, how an organization is set up and what attracts him as a professional to work in an organization like a bank. I was able to contact this person through my girlfriend, because he is her father and I was able to have a direct contact through a conversation at his home.

What I learned the most in this interview were the key concepts to have when working with more people. That is, that directing is about empowering the abilities of others towards the goals you have. On the other hand, I was very impressed by the fact that work should always be organized and focused on an objective. Working without an objective is just going to be a waste of time. It was important to see how the person expressed himself about management with a serious tone and that it is understandable because you have to be a good boss but you have to get things done. It makes me feel excited to meet someone who has the ability to be part of the board of directors and that makes me very curious about personnel management. 

This interview really clarified my ideas about the administration and management of organizations. I clarified ideas and doubts about the complexity of the position, so it encourages me to guide my career plan. In order to continue clarifying my path, I will continue to have contact with my interviewee and I will solve more doubts I have about the positions related to business management and human talent. 

 

I conducted the interview with my professor of several classes of Organizational Psychology, because he is someone who knows a lot about the career I am interested in pursuing. What I am interested in learning from this interview is to know what are the variety of activities that an organizational consultant can do. I was able to contact Juan Daniel because I had classes with him this semester, so I asked him to meet me after class. 

 

What I learned the most is that in consulting you can do many things. First of all, consulting can be done in personnel selection, organizational development, training, behavior and organization. Also, I think it is very important to comment that I learned the way a consultant can work, in relation to how to generate contact with clients, how to present projects and the structure that can be developed within consultancies. It is interesting to observe with the emotion that Juan talks about the consulting topics and that you can see the satisfaction of being able to teach others. Therefore, it leaves me with feelings of excitement and interest about the consulting processes.

 

Being able to talk to Juan allowed me to understand a lot of what work consultants do and in general what work is done in organizational psychology. I am very interested in consulting because it can cover all the areas that are handled in the area of human talent. What I will continue to work on to clarify my path is to research and take consulting courses to see if this is the path that interests me the most. 

The next activity is related to a sport that I have played before and that is tennis. In this case, the activity was to teach tennis to my girlfriend who had never played before. In this case, the activity contributed a lot to know myself better and that I can be a person with a lot of patience, because I didn't mind repeating things, communicating and following a process. In this case, the activity showed me that I can be a person with teaching and group management skills. 

The third activity that was new to me also happened in Riobamba. This time I had the opportunity to make bread from scratch. This activity also helped me to understand that I have good skills to follow processes. It is ideal for me to understand this because it teaches me that I can follow elements in order and have the ability to continue supervising each step of the process. 

The last activity was a great learning activity related to children. For one day I was babysitting and I managed to learn that I am not really interested in working with children. This teaching was very important because it made me understand the things that I don't even like to do. 

 

The activity of editing my digital presence was very interesting because from the beginning I have preferred to keep my social networks very personal. Even among my contacts or friends I don't share much information. In this case, the activity was not complicated and focused on changing the settings of my networks and who can see my content. This was very useful for me to learn that people can know us a lot just by our publications. It is so shocking that we leave a lot of information that can be easily accessible to everyone. Therefore, this activity impacted me because it is important to keep information that is not positive for the work environment private so that it is not a negative factor.

The video activity had an impact on me, because it allowed me to observe many mistakes and successes when answering the questions. What I did was to answer the following questions: 1) tell me a little about yourself, 2) What interests you about this job? What are your strengths, 3) what are your weaknesses, 4) how do you see yourself in 5 years, 5) tell me once you have shown a skill needed for the position, 6) how do you resolve conflicts?

 

Answering these questions and being able to watch the video impacted me because I consider that I have positive aspects, because I show evidence in my answers. Likewise, I can correct certain aspects such as speaking with more confidence. This activity is impactful because it was able to show me in a visual way how I act in a simulation. It is striking how observing yourself can provide a lot of feedback.

This last activity was very important to me because it gave me the opportunity to learn different perspectives on psychology. This time I read about human resource management and there were concepts and information that caught my attention. I talked with a colleague at work about clinical psychology, because she has her practice and there are elements of psychology that are interesting but that do not call me to work on it. On the other hand, I talked with a person who focuses on psycho-pedagogy and therefore I managed to understand that I am not able to find a taste for the care of children. 

 

This activity had a great impact on me, because it prepared me with a lot of information to know the types of work. Through this activity I was able to understand that what I am interested in is working in human resources management. That is, through the activity I had the opportunity to better understand the aspects of each job. This was an important factor for me to make the decision to pursue organizational psychology and look for the management of human talent.