application letter

2012/12/22

Yue Yinglong
1A Kent Ridge Road 119224 Mobile: 85154100
Email: yueyinglong@gmail.com
Application for APAC Management Program in Ralph Lauren

Dear Hiring manager :

I am writing to express my interest as a trainee in Ralph Lauren APAC Management program. I am expected to graduate from National University of Singapore (NUS) with a 2nd upper Class Honours in Electrical Engineering in May 2013, I am keen to start my career with Ralph Lauren because it is one of the best-known fashion design and licensing houses in the world. It also recently acquired Ralph Lauren to further its business initiatives and continuous expansion of its influence in the Asia Pacific region. I am intrigued by its active involvement in sustainability development programs and community engagement that looks beyond business gains. I would love to be part of this global organization.

Although as an engineering graduate, I have a strong passion on the luxury lifestyle retail business. I have honed my organizing skills through the various volunteering projects I have undertaken. I was involved in a service-learning program held by Ministry of Education that requires me to organize a Chinese Culture Camp for over 100 students from different communication centers. As a event leader, I led a team of 12 and successfully introduced students about the distinctive Chinese culture in multiple aspects such as music, comestible, handicraft etc.

During my work experience with DBS bank Singapore,  In order to deal with the less efficiency of our promotion. I proposed a modification, which suggested that instead of working individually, we should work together as a team and have different specializations for each individuals according to their advantages.  The proposal was accepted by the team leader immediately. The promotion efficiency was significantly improved and created the highest sale record among 4 days’ promotion. This working experience gave me the opportunity to work with people from all levels where I learnt interpersonal and negotiation skills.

In additional to attaining a strong academic result, I am actively involved in co-curricular activity. I was the co-founder and vice captain of Titans cheerleading team overseeing a group of over 70 members in NUS Together with my team, we organized successful performances at both the  NUS inter-hall game closing ceremony as well as the Torch hand-over ceremony of Youth Olympics in 2010. We received overwhelming positive feedback from the audience.  We were invited to perform in more platforms such as NUS Open House, Delta League opening ceremony. I am confident that all my skills and knowledge acquired in NUS will put me in a good position to excel with Ralph Lauren.

Thank you for your time to review my application. I enclosed my resume for your consideration. I look forward to a face-to-face interview with you to discuss my suitability for this position. I can be contacted at 85154100 or yueyinglong@gmail.com at your convenience.
Yours sincerely, 
Yinglong 

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Human is an intelligent animal that normally uses their own way to solve problems and not depend on someone else, however, when their thoughts regarding how to solve problems do not match, it gives rise to conflict between people. I will illustrate a real interpersonal conflict situation in the following paragraph.

I am involved in King Edward VII Hall basketball team. Basketball as a team sport, it requires the members in the team to work closely with each other and to achieve the same goal, which is to win the game. Therefore, some conflicts may be raised when the teammates are using different ways to approach to that goal. During one of our friendly matches, a conflict raised between our team captain and another player we call him CH here. Before the game began, captain announced the strategy for the offense in the game. However, CH spotted a major defect in this strategy which would make offense less inefficient. Instead of voicing out his suggestions on strategy, CH chose to ignore the strategy and played in his own way. His behaviors caused a big confusion in cooperation in offensive side. During the time out, CH could not tolerate the blames from the captain and finally pointed out the defect of the strategy, whereas, the suggestion from CH now was only regarded as an excuse for why he did not follow the strategy and was not accepted by the captain at all. CH had been substituted and due to the defect in strategy, we were lack of efficient ways to score which resulted that we lost game.  

In this situation, interpersonal conflicts were caused by three faults made by CH. Firstly, He ought to state the defect of the strategy while captain announcing it immediately, then all team members are able to discuss on how to improve the strategy on the spot. Secondly, even with a great disagreement on the strategy, he should not do the individual play and disrupt the cooperation in the team. Thirdly, he should not mention that defect during the time out. It would not only enhance the conflict between the Captain and him but also affect the determination of wining the game for other players in the team. Players would be distracted when the strategy did not work well and began to doubt the feasibility of the strategy as well. Although CH and Captain both original intensions are the same which is to win the game, the three faults made by CH caused an interpersonal conflict between him and Captain. Moreover, it caused a lose-game consequence to the team. Hence, in order to avoid such conflict, CH should raise the problem of the strategy before the game start. Everyone in the team would consider the problem and give a better solution for it. Even if CH hardly find an appropriate chance to point it out, CH should follow the strategy first as all team members are following it, then find a suitable time to indicate the problem politely to the teammates and captain and explain why it is a problem, meanwhile, CH would provide a concrete solution for the problem if possible. I believe, if CH handles this situation in this way, interpersonal conflict will be avoided and probably we will also win the game. Hence, an appropriate way of handling and resolving interpersonal conflict is very important in our daily life.

Here I leave some questions to the readers. In this situation, was this interpersonal conflict only caused by CH? Did captain and other teammates do anything wrong? What should they do to prevent this interpersonal conflict occurring if they were doing some wrong?