UOB Management Associate Career Forum & Assessment Centre

I was shortlisted to attend a career forum by United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) on last Friday and their assessment centre on the next day at Park Royal Hotel. The purpose of this forum was to brief us about the bank’s Management Associate Program.

UOB MA 2008 Career Forum

As what I’ve expected, more than 100 candidates were shortlisted for this career forum and the interviews. But what surprised me was the way they organised this forum. Do you know why?

1) We were not required to fill in any application form and they distributed a UOB goodie bag to every candidate.
2) Welcome drinks were served.
3) There were many UOB staffs interacting with candidates to share their experiences of working in UOB as well

as answering the questions of candidates.
4) There were staffs holding cameras and video cameras targeting all of us
5) Refreshments were served after the forum.

*Please pardon my poor quality photos because as a candidate, I was only able to snap few photos with my phone camera.

Orchid Ballroom at Park Royal Hotel


Looking for new boyfriend and girlfriend? Plenty of choices here


Refreshments


I was impressed by their remarkable and interesting presentations in the career forum

We were then given a passport and immigration card of UOB. The immigration card was used to fill in our details and the divisions we would like to choose.

I never expect the forum and the interviews would turn out to be so grand. This heavy and magnanimous investment proved that UOB places high value in their people in order to drive the success of the Bank.

Let me give you an overview of this program.

Management Associate Program is a 15-month program which aims to groom talents to be the future leaders of the Bank. Various type of training will be provided during the 15 months in “University of Banking” (UOB) and it includes job rotations, core training, simulation workshops and on-the-job training. After 15 months, MA will be promoted as senior officer and they have the choice to be placed in either business or support divisions of the bank.

Ok. I know most important thing you concern is the salary of the position and this was the reason why I applied for this position. What I can tell you is that, UOB pays above the industry average and the remuneration package for this position is just so attractive. In addition, UOB has a promotion scheme that clearly outlines the career progression and what surprises me is that, you can be promoted as a manager within 4 years time if your performance is good.

If you are not from accounting or finance background, don’t worry. As long as you are competent, dynamic and result-oriented, they will always welcome you to join this “Uniquely Outstanding Bank”. However, they will only have one intake for this program every year. For next intake or other vacancies, please click here.

Surely, this golden opportunity does not come by easy. All candidates have to go through four stages of selection, i.e. round one and round two assessment, online personality test and panel interview.

UOB MA 2008 Assessment Centre

We were told to arrive at Park Royal Hotel at 8am for breakfast. Yeah! UOB is just so great and rich. Not only breakfast, but they also provided lunch and high tea.

Instead of name, we were given a tag with number. The assessment started at 9.30am and ended at 6pm.

First round assessment was to examine our communication skills. So we had a breakfast assessment. Could you imagine how did they assess the candidates while we were all having breakfast outside the grand ball room? I won’t tell you. You guess…..

After breakfast assessment, all candidates were put into groups and we were given a topic and required to discuss our experiences and opinions with the assessor. Everyone was so aggressive in giving their views. I was damn lazy to fight with them actually. But for the sake of MONEY and my future, I forced myself to be aggressive as others in order to get opportunity to talk more.

Group discussion in the grand ballroom

Time for LUNCH

We were advised to eat as much as we could during lunch time because only 65 candidates would be selected to proceed to Round 2 assessment.


We had a 2-hour lunch break.

Sing Pei & Me. She looks like Sammi Cheng







Finally, it was the time to announce first round result. Everyone was so excited and nervous. Many of the candidates’ numbers were not being called to enter into the ballroom, including my number as well. Ok…. We were all waiting for their instructions to send us home.


Assessor : Don’t be sad if you are not selected because you just don’t have the competencies we are looking

for. Candidates, please come forward. How do you all feel now?
Candidates : Fine *Only a few responded*
Assessor : Please face back. Can you see the door in front? *We were facing the exit of the ballroom*
Candidates : What? We don’t see any door there.
Assessor : Welcome, candidates! You are now invited to continue with the Stage 2 assessment!
Candidates : Yeah! *Big applause*


Yeah yeah! I was shortlisted for the stage 2 assessments which comprised of two tests to examine our creativity and teamwork skill, as well as a written test and individual presentation.

The assessments were very challenging and what I benefited most was it gave me a more detailed insight of the functions of different divisions in the bank so that I can clearly know what position I want for my future application in other banks. In addition, I had so much fun during the forum and interviews because all the UOB staffs were very friendly and I get to know many new friends from different backgrounds.

P/S: I'm invited to go to the Torch Relay of 2008 Beijing Olympics at Dataran Merdeka on tomorrow 1pm. I'm kinda lazy because I hate outdoor activities during noon time. Go or not go?

I hate complex job application process

I applied for Standard Chartered Bank's International Graduate Program at their website this afternoon. The application process was too long and perhaps I could say they are very professional in recruiting good quality graduates. As stated in their website, I have to go through four stages in order to complete the application. If I meet their requirements, I will be asked to continue for stage 3 and consequently stage 4.

After completing my personal details (Stage 1), I proceeded to the talent assessment (Stage 2). It can be called a personality test and what i needed to do was just select the sentence that best described me and state the level of agreement to their statements.

I did not know what went wrong with their website and the page loaded unusually slow. The answer selected couldn't be submitted. I lost my patience and kept refreshing the page because this test was assessed by comparing my results to the attributes they have identified and based on the time taken to complete the test. As a result, I spent about 1 hour and 20 minutes for answering their questions (without taking any break time to toilet), which was recommended to be completed within 30-45 minutes.

I sacrificed my lunch time for that test. And I was damn frustrated with their stupid and slow system because I thought that it would definitely affect my results. I was right.

After 3 hours, I received their email and this is part of the content that made me extremely unhappy and angry.

"We have reviewed your assessment and regret to inform you that your profile does not match the requirements we are looking for in our International Graduates."

WTF!

#%@#?&@##........................

I need some comfort now. I confess that I'm impatient and couldn't accept failure when I'm very confident that I can succeed. But this time it's totally different. It's their fault........

I'm going to send them an email to complaint about their slow, inefficient and problematic system, which could be the cause of failing me in the assessment.

Vibrant Taipei (Part 3)

I just back from an interview with MUI Group in KL. It was the shortest and simplest interview I've ever attended. No IQ test, no personality test, no essay-writing and i was only interviewed by a manager, not a group of panel. I'm quite disappointed because I expect listed MNC would have strict requirements in recruiting executive trainees which they will groom us to be the future management team. So I decided not to attend their second round of interview. No point of wasting both parties' time since I'm not interested in joining them anymore.

Feel extremely sleepy and tired because I woke up at 6.30am to travel from Seremban to KL by our "fastest" KTM commuter. Though KTM has made more shopping complexes, offices and recreational centres more accessible, it has created an extremely serious problem that badly affects the people in Malaysia. Due to the undue delay of train, couples quarrel when their partners are late and employees are scolded by boss or have their performance evaluation deteriorated. Not only that, the "never-be-punctual" culture is further promoted in Malaysians' daily life. So we can imagine how the tourists would be impressed by this kind of public transport system.

Ok. I think I have enough complaints. Let's indulge in the hilarious moments to wipe away my tiredness.

TAIPEI again

............. I do not know when i can finish blogging about my taipei trip because I just love it too much. I miss their foods, their friendly people, their night markets and also their skin care products.

There are wide varieties of high quality skin care products in Taipei, mostly Taiwanese and Japanese brands for me to choose.

We went to a shopping centre in Xi Men Ding to have a glance on their skin care counters and also to compare prices.

The price of the skin care products are quite cheap compared to Malaysia. Price of facial masks were ranging from NT$ 10 to NT$ 200 per piece. What's more? The famous Japanese brand, Lifecella eye masks (unavailable in Malaysia) were only NT$ 199 for three pairs. Super cheap!!!

"Dog shit smell" was very common here as there were too many stalls selling “Stinky Taufu”.


I love this Korean style cap a lot


Off-season shoes were out for sale!


Food streets in Xi Men Ding


Since this shop was patronised by so many handsome students, I decided to check out what was their famous food.


I found “braised meet rice” was very common in Taipei and the price was only NT$25 for one.


Meet balls.


Fried oysters with egg. It was so perfect because the oysters were fresh and juicy .

The little Tokyo


Starbucks & 7-Eleven

Cinemas

Xi Men Ding symbolises the urban life in Taipei and it strongly reflects the Japanese and Korean culture. It’s just a modern and vibrant place for youngsters. Cinemas, food stalls, hair salons, beauty salons, convenience stores, shops selling garments and gadgets are all available here but things are a little bit pricey.

After exploring this unique and fun place, we went to Taipei 101, the landmark of Taipei. It is located at Xinyi District, a high-end shopping area in town.

Taipei City Hall MRT Station


Here we are!!

There are fabulous selections of international popular fashion brands, delicate restaurants with international cuisines and also a financial centre that comprises of banking services and electronic products.

The interior design of Taipei 101 is stylish and luxurious

Observatory level at Taipei 101


Taipei 101 during day time

I found one tall Christmas tree here. There were not much of Christmas decorations since it was just the beginning of December

Introduce my shopping heaven to you all..........

Wufenpu, a ready-made clothes distribution zone.


This place is just like another Pratunam in Bangkok.

Although there are many made-in China garments, but the quality is good. Besides, you can also find a lot of Korean and Hong Kong garments here.

Time to eat again........

The popular “Big big fried chicken fillet” with chilli powder





We then walked over to Raohe night market to buy its famous pepper buns.





People were queuing to buy the pepper bun.


Very strong pepper taste and it was nice because I was extremely cold in this windy night.


Next to the night market is an ancient temple

Day 2 in Taipei was my happiest day because I found my desired winter coats in Wufenpu. I advise you guys who wanna go shopping in Taipei to bring more cash because all the stuffs here are damn nice and they are just simply irresistible to buy. I had suffered from "no-cash-no-talk" experience when shopping at Wufenpu. They do not accept credit card at all. And that's why I bought very few clothes and souvenirs because I had no other ways to get cash in Taipei. So sad............

More savoury snacks and pretty photos of me are coming soon! But be patient because I'm busy preparing myself for the coming interviews and assessment centres with Alliance Bank, Public Bank, UOB Bank and Price WaterHouse Coopers. Please share your experience with me if anyone have been to the assessment centres of the firms named above.