Please help me improve my SOP

[GradDreamz87]

Hello, I changed some information in this for personal reasons but please let me know if I have spoken enough about my current situation and the why I want admission in their program. Does my SOP have a good "flow" to it? I am wondering if I am focusing too much on the past in my SOP, I originally though that was good since it tells a story about me but I'm not sure if I'm focusing on the past too much. This is for Cornell. I am applying to Masters in HR/Labor Relations programs. Am I being specific enough with what I want to accomplish in HR and should I make a specific faculty reference in regards to their work or is that too cliche? 

 

 

Master of Industrial and Labor Relations: Human Resource and Organizations

 

My first lesson regarding the significance of the Human Resources department was at the age of thirteen when I began working at my first documented position at X Department Store in my hometown of X of X Caribbean Island.  During my first day at work spent with the Human Resources Manager Suzy, I was lectured on the labor laws at the time and the importance of her following those laws in regards to my age. The knowledge of that importance has resonated with me long after I moved to Orlando, FL at the age of fourteen.

 

Before graduating from X Tech College, learning about the organizational change that took place at Microsoft throughout its rapid growth intrigued me to want to learn more about managing organizational change and employee communication. The Organizational Leadership program at X University-Orlando allowed me to have in class discussions with students who were also organizational leaders. During my senior year (spent in X main campus in another state), other than the memorable experience of achieving above the 2011-2012 fund raising target  for the United Way through Students in Free Enterprise (now known as Enactus), the discussion with Professor Suzy regarding how crucial the Human Resources department is to an organization’s survival inspired me. I decided that a Master’s Degree in business management would help me gain a better understanding of the decisions that are required for an organization’s growth and sustainability.

 

While at Hough Graduate School of Business, choosing to further study the Kaizen model (that I initially researched in the OL program) of Toyota’s continuous improvement model as a part of my final presentation for Organizational Behavior gave me a benchmark illustration of training and development. It was exciting to learn that the principles one organizational utilizes for success may not work as well for a competitor possibly because of benefits structure, conflicting strategies, or difference in international organizational cultures.  

 

After graduation, I contracted for X Company to consult various participants regarding their company benefit packages. I learned how benefit options for expatriates differed from U.S. employees, witnessed how benefits are correlated to employee morale, educated employees regarding employment law, and have informed HR managers regarding procedures required for initiating leave of absences. Although my official declaration to pursue a career in HR occurred during my third semester at Hough; my on the job experiences further convinced me to pursue a lifelong career in HR by returning to graduate school so that I may become an HR Business Partner for a multi-national organization preferably in the tech industry.

 

I am excited about the opportunity to provide in-depth analysis for multi-national corporations regarding all aspects of personnel challenges with the knowledge I will obtain from the Human Resources and Organizations concentration. My prior knowledge of Human Resources from both undergraduate and graduate school will help me meet the requirements of your rigorous program. I will savor every word of your faculty; I also look forward to joining MILRSO, COLA, and SHRM to share ideas and cultivate with my peers regarding labor challenges. Allow me to use my competence, endurance, and drive to successfully graduate from your program to make a global impact. 

[bsharpe269]

I would not start the SOP with a story about your first introduction to your field. It is pretty cliche and does not add much. I think that you should be able to connent every idea that takes up significant space in your SOP back to the question "what makes me a more suitable candidate for this program that the rest of the applicants?" I dont think that a story from your teenage years adds anything.

[GradDreamz87]

Thank you for your response! That is true, I have noticed many SOP's do start off that way. I will take it out the childhood story and instead maybe talk about solid ideas that make me stand out while discussing my uniqueness as an applicant. I will keep the: "What makes me a more suitable candidate for this program that the rest of the applicants?" in mind throughout my editing. 

[bsharpe269]

Yesterday I only had a chance to glance at this but I had the chance to read it in more detail and I can give you a few more bits of advice. Take them with a grain of salt since I am in a different field and am currently writing my SOP too so I dont have any more expereince than you do at this... it can always be hepful to get second opinions though.

 

So I already mentioed the intro. I feel like an intro should capture the audience and already give them a feeling for why you are a uniquely good candidate. Other than that, one thing that I noticed is that it seems like you sort of put your CV into words which makes the essay a bit more formulaic and less passionate sounding. Going into more details about a few things instead of glazing over many things may give you the opporutnity to expand on some of the things you are most passioante about. Along the same lines, I have read that a good excercise for improving your SOP is to try to minimize the number of times you use "I." We oten say things in SOPs like "I am excited about", "I decided", etc which makes the essay flow less. For example, you say that you decided to that a masters in bussiness because blah blah. It is obvious that you decided to get a masters since it is on the CV so the phrase "I decided" can be choped and the sentence can be rephrased and made more powerful. Usually when you find the phrases that you start with "I ..." you can identify places that are messing up the flow of the essay and not adding anything that someone couldnt guess from your SV. You will of course need to say "I" sometimes but I think it is overused here. In SOP advice articles, I have read that instead of saying that we decided something, did something, enjoy something, etc, that we should show it. If you can indenify the places in your essay where you tell about something you enjoy or feel and change them to examples or stories that show that feeling without having to say it then I think you can being a lot more personaility and passion out of the essay.

 

Sorry for pointing out problems... it isnt a bad essay at all! It is clear that you have tons of experience so I think the main thing that you should shoot for is to bring out more of your personality in the essay which maybe the advice above can help with.

[GradDreamz87]

I really appreciate your advice, this is really helping me. That's a great idea, I'm thinking that I do have somewhat of a sense of humor and maybe I can find a way to convey that a little through my essay too. I'm thinking that maybe I can also focus on how I would like to help organizations focus on building better training programs. For instance, I've been through many training classes and I feel that the psychological aspect is sometimes missed. Some employees learn different than others, so maybe it would make sense for some employers to ask that employees do more learning self-assessments through training so that trainers can use that to their advantage during training classes. I think that since I started talking about continuous improvement in the body of my essay focusing on this would make sense. 

 

I've read some websites say it's good to tell stories as well, I think my issue was narrowing down 1 or 2 HR topics since as an HR Business Partner that I hope to someday be, I would have a variety of tasks to juggle but I think that if I were to start writing a thesis today, training would be my main focus. My undergrad thesis focused on safety in the workplace of my previous employer and how investing in training could help that. Maybe in the paragraph where I talk about my past HR employer I can discuss how training could have been modified to reduce the Very high turnover of employees asked to work in the 401-k department. 

[StudyStar]

Sent you a PM!

[bsharpe269]

I think that all of those ideas you mention sound really great. Those are the things that make you unique but that someone can't learn about you from your CV!

[ShadowFairy]

Definitely take out the introduction to your field in your case. Experiences from childhood are for the most part redundant because if you're applying to that program, it's automatically presumed that you have already developed an interest for it.

 

I think adding experiences that contribute to the interest of your intended field of study can only work to your advantage, and I like how you've done a narrative of your school/career leading up to your decision and reason to apply to the program. However, you could expand on the impact of your work done during your time in Business School, since I could hardly call that a stand-alone paragraph.

 

There are also a few sentence structural errors that make the passages read awkwardly or demonstrate sloppy writing IMO. Example:

 

"Although my official declaration to pursue a career in HR occurred during my third semester at Hough; my on the job experiences further convinced me to pursue a lifelong career in HR by returning to graduate school so that I may become an HR Business Partner for a multi-national organization preferably in the tech industry"

 

Semi-colon should be used on two independent clauses (sentences that can stand on their own) whose ideas or points really relate to one another, and putting them together can strengthen the idea behind the statements. Also the second clause can be dramatically shortened for clarity.

 

Finally, don't make requests to the program in your statement ('allow me to....') or make cajolery ('I will savor...'). Those make you sound a bit presumptuous and a little desperate. Talk about why it's a good fit for you and what you can contribute to it, whether in discussion, diversity, mindset, idea-sharing, etc.

 

My comments may be a little stingy, but I hope they do you well!

[GradDreamz87]

I appreciate all of your replies. I have edited my SOP a lot since that first draft above, it's almost a completely different essay now but it still has the most of the same chronological order. I know that there were multiple grammar and punctuation/mechanic errors in this first draft but I wanted to get a better idea of what to write before I started doing some more editing. 

 

RideTheLightning469,

 

Thank you for your response as well, I have since completely removed that first paragraph posted here and instead started off describing an HR turnover issue in the 401-k department at my former employer (an HR outsourcing company) and a recommended a recruiting/training strategy to solve it. Then, in my last sentence I discussed why I needed a second Master's degree (I know they'll have a concern about that) and the fact that I wanted to study organizational dynamics in order to improve training and development in the workplace. 

 

I also looked at the part in which I discussed graduate school, you are right, it did need more information about how I contributed to my program. It's a good thing you mentioned that, I just went back to add some information regarding that. Even though my 1st Master's degree was not research based, I was able to make some more edits that can show how I can contribute to the field. For instance I expanded more on my presentation that illustrated how Kaizen can be used as a benchmark to solve some organizational training issues presented in a book that I was required to read for my Organizational Behavior class.

 

I still need to check my final version for any errors. I think I may post it again in a new thread or maybe I'll just post it in this same thread I'm not sure yet. 

[what2do]

@GradDreamz87

 

Hi there! I'm looking to apply to cornell too, and was wondering if you got in.

[GradDreamz87]

@what2do

Hi, sorry I took so long to answer, I just logged in for the first time in a long time...I did not get accepted to Cornell but I did receive acceptance to my top choice TC @ Columbia U with partial funding. Columbia was my top choice so once I found out Cornell rejected me 3 weeks later I was not too discouraged. I believe that maybe I was rejected because my quantitative scores were not very high. It's OK though, I am adjusting to the scene here in NYC and so far so good.