Reflection on "Employers Study Applicants' Personalities"

I believe the article "Employers Study Applicants' Personalities" by Ellen Simon presented some good ideas. I believe that teaching someone a skill is just as important as their personality. A person has to be able to do the job, but also be able to work well with coworkers. With skill and a good personality, the job will most likely be done well and of good quality because of the positive atmosphere. In my opinion, the interview process that Rackspace uses would be very effective. They have interviewers go through an all day interview. After approximately 10 hours, a company will know a great deal about a person. I also believe companies that include coworkers in interviews would be effective. Coworkers are going to want a person they feel is intelligent, hard-working, and personable.

Dual Coding Theory

I was watching TV and saw a Levi jeans commercial. A boy is pulling up his jeans and the ground level of the building comes up with them. He finds himself on the street looking at a girl that is also wearing Levi jeans. It is obvious that they are attracted to each other. The dual coding theory is used in this commercial because it uses pictures and words to appeal to young men and women. It portrays that if you wear Levi jeans, you are attractive.

I also saw a Geico commercial that portrayed the dual coding theory. It was using celebrities to promote Geico insurance. Because of the words celebrities used and visual images of celebrities promoting the insurance, the dual coding theory was used. This commercial is trying to appeal to men and women using celebrities because many people want to be like celebrities.

Group Work

I have learned that group work can be easy at times and hard at times for college students. My group has done very well with communicating. We communicate a lot through email which avoids many miscommunications because the information is in writing to refer back to. There has been once or twice that an email has been unclear and I have had to ask for an explanation. Also, my group is not good with setting exact deadlines. We usually say to get the work done as soon as possible and email it to the person it should go to. Sometimes this halts progress because everyone's schedules are different, and certain times are better for some than others. This could be avoided in the future and phase 2 by setting a specific time for everyone to have their work completed. Frequent group meetings to discuss the project in detail has been very successful for my group, and email has also worked well. I like that everyone in my group does their share of the work. I think my group has been a good group to work with.