This evening, the harvest festival, Shavu'ot, begins. Traditionally, every meal during the festival is based on cheese; this is one of the defining marks of Jewish festivals: each festival has its specific dish.
This morning, the HRM exam was held. As this evening is a festival, the morning was similar to a Friday morning, in which few people work. The train going to Tel Aviv had plenty of room, whereas the same train on a normal weekday would be packed. Similarly, once in Tel Aviv, the streets were quiet (although busy by 1pm).
This time around, three different subjects were being examined at the same time, which meant that there was a little confusion in the exam hall, while the invigilators made sure that everyone had the correct exam paper. There is a rule that no one is allowed out of the exam hall during the first forty five minutes (I'm not sure why); because of the late start, my bladder was already full and overflowing before I was allowed out for a pit stop - and one invigilator got worried because of the amount of time that I spent in the toilet.
The HRM exam consisted of three questions: two case studies, each worth 40 marks, and an essay question worth 20 marks. The case studies present a situation, possibly a report which someone has made on a situation regarding HRM, and the examinee, as the HRM expert, is supposed to comment and find all the mistakes, as well as adding the theoretical material. The practice case studies were fairly easy and all of them presented a report which had to be criticised. Unfortunately, today's case studies were not in the same mode.
The first case study was about a successful British clothing retailer who intends to open a few branches in France. The examinee was invited to comment about the retailer's recruitment and selection process (chapter five, I hear you saying). The first thing to do was to mention the six different criteria for selection processes (reliability, validity, fairness, development cost, application cost and applicability) and then to relate these criteria to the various processes. Apparently the French use different selection processes to the British; what does this mean? Also the French like graphology - which is an almost useless method in terms of validity. The main problem, as far as I could see, was fairness; cultural differences between British and French probably mean that the entire selection process would have to be checked.
At the end of the answer, I threw in a few extra things which weren't about the selection process per se but rather about other problems which were likely to arise. I admit that this was (depending on one's choice of metaphor) a kitchen sink approach, throwing enough mud in the hope that some would stick, a shotgun approach. Even so, one does not get penalised for adding irrelevant material, and maybe the examiner has enough leeway to award a few extra marks for off the wall comments.
The second case study was a bit of a puzzler in that its material didn't seem to come from the course that we had been taught. It was about a junior health and safety manager who was supposed to attend a seminar explaining the company's new attitude of attending to the workers' psychological welfare. The junior manager 'wrote' a letter to an HR manager explaining his non-understanding of the seminar's content, and the examinee was supposed to write a letter back, explaining everything. The case study wasn't exactly difficult to complete but it wasn't much based on taught material, so in a sense the entire answer was a shot in the dark. There were a few bits which came from Total Quality Management (TQM, chapter 3), so these were definitely in the curriculum and easy to handle; there was also a hint about organisational culture.
The third, essay, question was short and simple: contrast the matching and Harvard models of HRM. This basically required regurgitating some material which had been taught in chapter 2. There are six criteria but I could only remember five. As the question asked one to contrast the models, I didn't go into any great depth about the models themselves nor about the criticisms about them; in retrospect, this may have been a mistake.
At the final revision meeting a few weeks ago, I asked our lecturer whether it would be necessary to learn the models. I asked this because he made a great thing about the models when we were learning them but after we did a few case studies, it became unclear how this material could be worked into the form of a case study. The lecturer thought about it then replied that the only way he could see that the material could be included would be if there were an essay question asking one to contrast the models. Lucky guess?
The same lecturer asked me to send him my recollections of the questions after the exam. He is the person who will be marking our questions and will receive a marking guideline before he starts, so in retrospect his request seems unnecessary. Anyway, I sent him my recollections and alluded to the strangeness of the second question, adding that a few people with whom I spoke after the exam also commented on it. It will be interesting to see what his guidelines are (not that I expect him to send them to me...).
How well did I do? It's always slightly difficult to judge, and with such an open paper as this, it's more difficult than usual. I have no doubt that I passed but I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at a mark (although 70 seems reasonable). I'll find out in another few months when I recommence my studies with the Finance course.
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