Hello and Welcome to My World

I would like to give you a quick overview of me as a competent future employee with this virtual portfolio I put together. I hope to give you a whollistic picture of me as a person and portray what a simple resume might not be able to illustrate. On here, you can find out about my professional, work related skills and accomplishments, but also get a grasp of me as an individual with a unique background. I will be posting my resume and some completed works. But I also want to share my interests with you, one of which is photography.

I have many aspirations and ambitions that will make me able to compete with the best of the best in my future work setting. But I don’t want to give away too much, scroll down and find out more in… Hannah At a Glance

Letter of Intent

Thank you for taking a look at my virtual portfolio!
I am a hard working student and would describe myself as reliable, accurate, and always on time. The different subjects I study and the many travels I have done so far, emphasize my passion for adventure. I have learned to become flexible in adapting to different work settings, living conditions, and collaboration with different cultures. I take school related issues seriously but also know how to relax and recharge my batteries.
My friends describe me as smart, funny, thoughtful, assertive, focused and a person with an overall positive attitude and outlook on life. I like to occupy myself with the finer things in life and most of the time you find me with a smile on my face. This is why I have been given the Chinese name: Le Can Lan (=charismatic person with a radiant smile)
As I will graduate in the Spring of 2010, I intend to approach future employers with this virtual portfolio in a more creative way than with an ordinary job application. In looking at not only my professional skills, but also my personal activities and interests, you will have a better understanding of me as a person. Hopefully I can hereby facilitate your decision in considering me as a future employee in your company.
Thank you and enjoy!

Background

I am a 23-year old student from the City of Science, Darmstadt, Germany. I am currently studying abroad at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, NJ. I believe it is important to gain insight in as many fields of study as possible, which is why I chose two minors and one major for my study. My major is American Studies and my two minors in Business and Psychology. Here, at TCNJ however, I am taking Chinese, Managerial Accounting, Organizational Psychology, Organization and Leadership and Speaking in Business and Government. With this wide variety of studies I hope to be able to compete with the best of the best in my future work setting.
As much as I like to vary my education, I’d like to have various and interesting cultural experiences. One of my greatest passions is traveling and gathering new experiences in other cultures. I have been to many countries such as Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Latvia and the United States (19 states), just to name a few. This year I am living in the “International House” on campus together with people from the USA, Germany, China, Thailand and Japan. I learn a lot about the different cultures which I think is important in the global economy of tomorrow. I wish to further explore foreign cultures and plan on living a year abroad in China.

Resume

My work and academc experience is both combined in my resume. So please take a look.

Work Experience

My first internship was in 9th grade and I completed it at a Deutsche Bank branch. I learned the handling of “difficult” customers and effective communication amongst co-workers. I also learned how important it is to be on time and how to handle money in general.

As I got older I moved on to more interesting internships, but stayed in the bank business. Almost every year on summer break I came back to the European transaction bank and worked in different areas such as IT Infrastructure & Support, Securities Production and Securities Trade Processing Registered Shares. I also witnessed how the company and its entire structure changed to xchanging. It was especially interesting to see how employees I had met years before had moved on to higher level positions.

To help pay for tuition, I chose to work for a small family owned restaurant close to our small town zoo. If you’re ever in Darmstadt, Germany check out: Eulenpick, where the service is friendly and you can have breakfast right next to the flamingo bawn.
When I started college in 2005 I began looking for more serious part time jobs and started working for CPM in Bad Homburg, a marketing service company that let me train and supervise temporary workers on specific promotion jobs (such as a Red Bull promotion).

Working as a temporary student worker for Gunther GmbH was another milestone in my career as I developed a deeper understanding of small family run businesses. I helped launch a new data processing system that ultimately facilitated more efficient assembling and distributing of their machines and products. I am looking forward to further working with a company that can help me develop cultural awareness and leadership skills.

Academic Experience

Several student exchanges have helped me figure out what kind of academic career I want to pursue. With the Atlantic College in Wales and the highschool of Liepaja, Latvia I gained my first international experience.
While currently still enrolled in the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, I am on a one-year scholarship with one of our partner universities, The College of New Jersey.

I have many works in German but also some that I am proud of in English.
This is a short sample of my translation from German to English.

During my first semester I read a lot of Philip Roth's work and he became my favorite author. In one of my classes I wrote an evaluation of the main character Alan Kepesh in both works 'The Dying Animal' and 'The Breast'.

One of the works I am really proud of is the thesis I wrote for my social psychology class. It is about the networking system guanxi in China and describes cross-cultural differences in a working environment.

Only last semester I did a presentation on one of my favorite companies and hopefully future employers, McKinsey&Company while identifying and solving a communication problem within the company:

My Photography

One of my great passions is photography and while I have taken many pictures, I chose to post the most recent ones I took on my travels in the United States. These are pictures taken in 2008 in Las Vegas, Washington DC and New York City and Canada but also in back yards in Virginia, New Hope, Cape May and Rhode Island.

Languages and Cultures

Besides photography, I love traveling and learning new languages.
My native language is German, but I am also fluent in English (TOEFL test 115/120 points). I took Latin in high school and my French is conversational. I'm also currently working on written and oral efficiency in Chinese.
Here is a map of countries I have already been to. I'm planning to make a lot more countries "appear green" in the near future.

My MBTI- ISTJ

To give you a little bit of an idea how I approach work and what communication type I am, I chose to post my Myer Briggs Type Indicator. The MBTI is a tool that a manager can use to ultimately build teams with as many different communication types as possible to maximize proficiency.

A year ago I took the MBTI test and confirmed my test result this year. I am an ISTJ type, which stands for Intuition, Sensing, Thinking, Judging.
According to Berkely University, “a person with this type is characterized to be decisive in practical affairs, and if only one adjective could be selected, dependable would best describe this type. When they give their word, they give their honor. ISTJs can be counted on to conserve the resources of the institution they serve and bring to their work a practical point of view. ISTJs can handle difficult, detailed figures and make sense of them.
They communicate a message of reliability and stability, which often makes them excellent supervisors of, for example a business operation. ISTJs are patient with their work and with procedures within an institution. They will see to it that resources are delivered when and where they are supposed to be. They have a keen sense of right and wrong, especially in their area of interest and/or responsibility. They are noted for devotion to duty. Punctuality is a watchword of the ISTJ.”

Berkely university> http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~joyh/istj.html

Some people that are ISTJs:
George Washington, Rosalynn Carter, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Benjamin Harrison, Herbert Hoover

On an ending note...

I want to thank you for taking the time to find out more about me as a person. I designed this virtual portfolio to give you an overview of me as a professional, skilled, motivated, hard working and creative person. I enjoyed sharing this information with you and I’m glad to answer any question that you might have left as a future employer.

I’d like to say good bye to you with a quote from Mark Caine: “The successful has always a number of projects planned, to which he looks forward to. Any one of them could change the course of his life overnight”. My next big project is my graduation from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. To find out how and if the course of my life changes overnight, come back to... Hannah at a Glance!