五色鳥和飛魚的旅英札記

Over the past two weeks, I have read through a lot of training materials and case studies found from the internal knowledge share database. It was very interesting for me to sit and read a lot in the office, but I was expecting to join training courses or projects to learn more real business rather than theories on the papers.

Hence, I decided to work and act more actively. I sent an email to my division manager to state my current status and to mention that I will be pleased to work on any internal or external project. The manager replied the email in 10 minutes and gave his apologies for not sitting down with me in the last couple of weeks because he was busy in budgeting and planning for the next year.
The next day, the manager came to have a short meeting with me. He asked me to join a project team starting from the next week and to help in an internal project to set up the training framework for all consultants in the company. This assignment is suitable and helpful for me to start from my familiar area and learn further in project cycles and training framework.

The kick off meeting for the project will be held next week. I believe that these few days will be my last easy days in the office. We will see.

During my second week in the company, as what I found in my first week, my supervisor did not ask me to do anything specific. However, I spent a lot of time in two things except the Christmas party last Wednesday evening.

First, I was trying to gather more information for possible business opportunities in Taiwan and to read case studies. I am a consultant rather than a sale, but I do look forward to going back to Taipei for business and projects. That is why I was trying to find out more business opportunities in Taipei for my company.
After few contact with my old colleagues and friends in Taipei, I have found three possible opportunities in Taiwan for my company. All of them are leading commercial banks in Taipei. I have sent an email to contribute these three business leads to my company and am waiting for the response.

Second, I read many real case studies about how the company delivered their consulting services to their clients. The cases studies are extensive and include architecture of risk management, implementation of treasury application, evaluation of CRM solutions, performance improvement of databases, and application upgrading. It was very interested and helpful for me to go deep into the past real cases. I shall keep reading more case studies before I start to involve a project later.

我的論文成績這周公佈了！
雖然老師之前就說，我的論文有學術發表的潛力，應該可以拿到高分，但我還是很驚訝自己最後竟然拿到了70分！ 英國是50分及格，台灣是要70分才算及格，所以我能在英國拿到70分，差不多就等同於台灣的90分吧！
老師以前也說過，作業要能拿到70分，是非常困難的， 除非是老師看過作業後，老師自己也從中學習到一些新的東西才行。

It was very excited for me to go to my first Christmas party hold by the company. It was also a good chance for me to compare differences between English Christmas party and Taiwanese year end party.

In the party, I met a lot of consultants which is working in clients’ sites and hardly to be found in the office. Before the dinner, I went around people to say hello and to have short chats like the other people did in the bar. Because I was so new in the company, I did not know everyone’s background and position in the company. Hence, I asked everyone I met which department and job you are doing. It was a shame that I ask the same questions to some senior managers, partners and founders. However, all of them were very friendly to me and also gave me some helpful suggestions at the early stage in the company.
Another interesting thing I found in the party is that most people were very happy to join the company because of the chance to learn a lot of things from projects and experienced colleagues. An Italian was proud to tell me that he spent four months to work and travel around 8 countries in 4 continents this year. In the end of the party, he was awarded a prize from the chairman for his contributions to the company this year. The enthusiasm and passion from everyone in the company really encouraged me to keep going on my job.

A slight difference between the English Christmas and Taiwanese year end party was not expected before I attend the party. In every Taiwanese year end party, employers always provide a lot of prizes and gifts to reward their employees’ hard working. Everyone in the party can have one or many chance to win a big prize like a car or two round trip flight tickets to Europe plus 10 holidays. I was expecting the prizes in the Christmas party, but it did not happen and made me a little bit disappointed.

Overall, I enjoyed the party very much and was very happy to meet a lot of people there. I look forward to joining projects with them next year.

Office design may be not the most important for the company, but can still represent its cultures and image to its staff and clients. Compared to typical office design of open area and natural colour style for banks’ office, office design for a consultancy firm is sort of special to fulfil the firm’s nature of flexibility and mobility of its consultants.

My first look at the office design and layout of the company was very impressive. The office is separated into two big sections with totally different designs and functionalities. One section is for conferences with its clients. The design of the section is a modern and professional style with many modern drawings. The other section is the office for its consultants and general supporting staff. The design in the office section is a functional and open style.
The most impressive designs in the office section are two things. First, the general manager’s office is the first place next to the front gate and there is no door. It gives me a strong image that the culture in the company is very open and all staff are welcome to talk with the GM. Second, there is no fixed seat for consultants, because most consultants are required to work in client’s sites for projects. Instead, we have many hot seats which the consultants only need to login their id and password into the desktop and phone on desk. The consultants working on a project are sitting in another quiet room which is convenient to discuss with their team members. Sales team locates between the consultants and managers sections. This design makes every staff easy and efficient to communicate and to build a good relationship. In the consultant area, there is no personal stuff, but many big plants around the area. It makes me feel to work in a professional and comfortable environment.

I like the design of the office, but I would like to go out for projects rather than stay in the office. Hopefully, I will have some training courses in Paris first, then start my project in client’s site in a near future.

11月初工作確定後，我回台灣渡假了兩個禮拜。
去年九月出國唸書後，已經一年多沒有回台灣了！ 沒想到這次回國竟是以渡假的身份回去。 行李中沒有衣服也沒有書本，只有滿滿的禮物和期待， 期待再見到我親愛的家人。
兩個禮拜中，我沒有一天是閒著的。按照事前寫好的代辦事項和採買清單，一項項完成再回英國長期生活的準備。 也拜訪許久未見得同事和朋友們，幾乎每天都在和朋友吃飯， 晚上又繼續貪吃懷念已久的台灣小吃， 好怕自己胖起來，回英國後西裝褲都要重買了。

For a consultancy firm, people and knowledge are undoable the most important and valuable assets. A key point to continue to succeed in their business is a well knowledge management strategic and platform. If a consultancy company fails to keep knowledge in the company when their consultants leave, it will prepare to fail in the highly competitive market.

Therefore, during my first week in the company, it was really excited and important for me to explore their extensive knowledge database by myself. The company used to share their all documents such as technical references, training materials, meeting minutes, sales brochures, and consultant’s portfolios by structured shared folders. This way was good for a small scale knowledge pool, but may not suitable for an extensive, fast growing, power search required, and remote accessing environment after the company expanded to a next step for more business.
I joined the company just at a right time point, because they implement a Microsoft solution “Sharepoint” for their knowledge management. All old documents are transferring from the shared folders into the new platform. By using the Sharepoint, every consultant can not only share documents, but also search the documents by a build-in full text search engine, discuss problems and solutions in forums, assess emails, calendar from Outlook exchange server and all documents from home and client’s sites, and create different group sites and personal sites. I can see that the company did pay a lot of effort to improve their knowledge management platform and has prepared for next growing stage.

However, the most important thing for the knowledge management is not the platform, but cultures in the company. Are the consultants in the company willing to share their valuable experience and business know-how with each others? Do the company’s executives and senior managers support and encourage the culture of sharing knowledge and information? Fortunately, I can see both in the company. I found numerous documents including the company’s quarterly meeting minutes, historical monthly and yearly budget and actual revenues and profits, and satisfaction surveys from the staff and clients on the “Sharepoints”. It is very interesting especially for a starter to look at the history of the company’s strong growing as well as many negative feedbacks from the surveys.

From the open and extensive knowledge database, I have learned a lot by myself about the history, values, versions, and financial status of the company and the professional knowledge in consulting and applications for the past week. I am happy to explore the knowledge database to learn by myself and look forward to learning more, involving projects, and contributing my experience into the database in the future.

I started my job on Monday and am excited to join the company.
For the past week, no one asked me to do anything in the office, but I had a lot of things to do. It's a truly consultant's work style which I have to work self motivated and to get myself prepared for any coming projects. It doesn't mean that I need to work solely and alone. Actually, I will join some project teams to work with 4~6 experienced consultants who have more than 15 years experiences in Banking or IT consultancy industries in a global basis.

Hi Everyone,
I joined XXX as a Consultant in Trading and Capital Market division on 28^th November 2005 after recently gained my degree of MSc with distinction in International Banking and Finance in London with mark of distinction of my dissertation “Value at Risk for Market Risk Management in Banking”I have over 9 years’ experience in Banking and IT consultancy industries including more than 2 years’ management experience gained within the Back Office of two global commercial banks in Taipei where I developed extensive knowledge of Derivatives including FX Spot, Forward, Swap, Options, Futures, IRS, CCS, FRA, Asset Swap, Structured Deals, Commodity Derivatives, and Credit Derivatives.
During my last year in the bank from April 2003 to June 2004, I managed a team of 10 members to settle Credit Derivatives and Financial Derivatives. I also led my staff to cooperate with IT project team and Murex consultants into three phases of implementing Murex v2.8 for the Back Office functions. In the project, I was in charge of reviewing all user requirements, work flows, functions, and reports for the Back Office, signing off the UATs, verifying the data migration from various old in-house systems to Murex, and following up all problems after the Murex went live. In order to sort out some problems like confirmations and reports generation quickly for my staff, I also conducted some helpful solutions by myself through the Microsoft Excel with VBA.

面試之前
通過了第一關與Job agent的面試，接下來就進入最重要的第二關，和部門主管面試。根據我在外商銀行和國內新銀行不同文化的工作經驗，兩者對於應徵新人的流程和HR扮演的 角色不太一樣。在國內的新銀行的做法是，公司在應徵新人時，通常是由人事部門（HR）由眾多CV中選出第一關面試的應徵者，然後安排應徵者與HR面試，只 有通過HR面試的CV才會送給部門主管選擇，而我以前做主管在選CV的時候，通常是十封CV才選一個人來面試。所以應徵者至少要面試兩次（有的要三次，多 一次和資深主管），HR就是第一關面試扮演重要角色。而外商銀行則有點不同，應徵者不用先和HR面試，HR只先篩選CV，第一次和部門主管的面試就幾乎決 定一切，通過主管面試後，應徵者才和HR面試，但這個面試主要是談薪資福利的事情，已經無關錄用與否了。
可是，我在倫敦這次面試的經驗又 和台灣的不同。這裡的工作甚至要面試到四次（Job agent, Department manager, HR, Senior manager），而且HR的面試在其中也扮演重要的角色，不是只有談薪資福利的事情而已，有關HR的面試，請容我稍後再詳述。
和部門主管的面試通常是最重要也是最關鍵的階段。這個面試不只著重於工作動機，個人特質，更會著墨於工作專業的部份，畢竟部門主管不會想找一個無法勝任工作的人來給自己添麻煩。如果有筆試或測驗，大概也會在這個階段進行。
我的Job agent很快地就幫我安排好與部門主管的面談，而且還很專業的寄了一封面試邀請函，內容除了面試者的資料外，還有面試時的流程和可能的問題範圍，以及公司背景的介紹。有關Job agent給我第二關與部門主管面談的重點如下：