Monday, March 11, 2013

Attending the Shell company event and ECU’92’s economic conference on confidence.


As I will be graduating in the near future, I have to start thinking about what to do after. Although I don't have a clear future prospect yet, I found it interesting to visit the Shell company event, which was organized recently at the UCU campus. On the one hand to get an idea what the company is all about, on the other hand to prepare a bit for the upcoming job search and the related interview and selection procedure. It was just this that I liked best of the evening, apart from the drinks of course. In a workshop with two HR-employees they explained a shift in selection procedures is currently going on, away from the traditional focus on the grade lists and board memberships, exchange semesters and other extracurricular activities, towards a more reflective manner of selection.
They believe that if one is able to reflect and learn from past experiences, this potential employee is also able to apply this in his/her work, benefitting the company. I find this very appealing.

I recently attended ECU'92's economic conference on confidence. They managed to attract some very interesting and influential speakers, of which Arnold Heertje and Sweder van Wijnbergen were certainly most prominent. Too bad the latter speaker couldn't make it in the end, but it was fascinating to hear professor Heertje lecturing. At age 73, he is still unbelievable passionate about economics, and he's able to give a clear overview of the current affairs. According to professor Heertje, the current consumer confidence crisis is not only bad at all. Although he acknowledges the negative side that the economy is not performing well currently, and an increase in consumer spending rather than saving could help to boost the economy to get out the crisis. He points at the positive sides of the increased savings by consumers. He argues that consumers are improving their financial situation by paying off debts and saving money, which in the future can be applied to finance new investments by companies, thus stimulating the economy in the long run. I think this is a very interesting line of thought.

This will be it for now. Soon I will be wrapping up my last 2 courses of my study career, before starting to write on my thesis.

Cheers!

Lars

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