Category: Claudia

I can’t believe that these 8 weeks have come to end. I have learned more about myself during this short time than I have ever had in my life. To begin, as an intern at Colliers International, I learned that I still have a long way to go and a lot to learn. Most of the work I was assigned was foreign to me, so it was very challenging at time. I was always very professional and tried to work in a timely manner, but I wish I would have asked more questions when I got assigned a task. After doing a couple of presentations and receiving feedback from my advisor, I have room for improvement on the creation of charts/ tables and the sophistication of my reports. As a result, moving on, I will take some online courses and try to get more practice to improve on these qualities. 

Before starting at Colliers, I wasn’t really sure whether real estate was what I wanted my career to be in the future but after this summer, I can say with certainty that I love the industry. Having the chance to work with different teams within the company, I was able to see the multitude of opportunities that exist in the field and narrow down which jobs I like. Now I know that although working with the marketing team was great, I still don’t think I have the creative mind needed for the job. However, doing a part of the quarterly report and research on a commercial building taught me that I’m really passionate about analytics.  As a result, I am more interested in evaluation and investment jobs.

A key takeaway from this experience is to never plan too much ahead of time because things will never go the way you plan them. Here my plans seemed to change almost every day and although at first, I didn’t like that, I later started to understand that if everything was always planned out and I knew what was going to happen every second of the day, then life would be boring because I would never have anything to look forward to. Another key takeaway is that HCMC has a significant presence of multinational life around the city as well as in its businesses. Working in my company I got to talk to people from all around the world and really understood that we are all more similar then we think. This is an important takeaway because it taught me that fear of the unknown is just in our minds and we should always strive to get out of our comfort zones.

Thus far, my proudest moment in my internship has been presenting my competitive shopping findings to my supervisor and the residential team. I’m proud of this moment because from the information I gathered from the competitors, now the residential team knows what is out in the market and can adjust their methods and procedures to offer the best customer experience to their clients. After presenting, I immediately saw this happening when the head of the residential team took out all the leasing contracts/agreements and asked me if I could help and look over them. Now that the team has finished looking through the contracts, they are starting to look through all the option list examples I gave them so that they can come up with a template that works best for the type of customers they get.

 My biggest professional accomplishment in the internship has been all of the research I have done because I have learned a lot from it. Every Tuesday, we always have a meeting with the CEO, and I have felt accomplished a couple of times when the team has presented research I have done, and the CEO has liked it. An example of this is the comparable research I did at the beginning of the internship. The information that I gathered was used to help shape templates for the companies new marketing campaign that was launch 2 weeks ago.

After living and working in Ho Chi Minh City for almost two months, I can say that I don’t view life the same anymore. Living and working here has thought me to take risks and that fear is all part of the process. Even though at the beginning it can be daunting, most of the time you will end up with a great outcome since you’re forcing yourself out of your comfort zone. At work, I have learned this from presentations and from my co-workers. I went in with a mindset that I would say yes to everything and I am glad that I did. I can’t tell you how many delicious plates I would have missed on if I wouldn’t have made this promise before arriving in Saigon.

Before coming to Ho Chi Minh City, I did not know much about the real estate industry. Now, with no surprise, I can say I have learned more about the industry and what sector I want to work in after graduation. First, while doing the competitor shopping, I got to see and learn all the steps that are required to lease an apartment in this market. Second, I have also learned a little bit about contract writing and how to conduct detailed research. Third, in the marketing department as an intern, I have learned how to do comparables and search engine optimization.  Lastly, I have really enjoyed this time because I have gotten to talk to many of my co-workers and have learned all about what their jobs entail. This has helped me because I have been able to narrow down the jobs that I want to pursue within the real estate world.

In a SWOT Analysis, I would say Colliers International strength is that the company has a great group of experts who are extremely detailed which has accelerated the client’s success. Although there are only about 50 employees in the company, Colliers weakness is communication amongst the departments. I believe that this is also an opportunity because each department head and HR personnel have already started working on a plan to improve the situation. So far, they have noticed that the departments have effective communication internally but struggle to keep the rest of the company informed. This is a struggle because sometimes a department is dealing with a client that another department has already worked with in the past and they don’t even know it. In order to fix this, HR has been working on updating guidelines and also creating a welcome packet for new employees that explains everything they need to know about each department. The company’s threat is its competitors and their marketing strategies because marketing is what makes or breaks the opportunity of attaining a prospect. 

While living and working in HCMC, I have had many amazing moments, one that comes to mind is a networking event I attended this Wednesday. This event was a great opportunity because I got the chance to meet over 30 international CEO’s.  The event was held at Deutsches Haus which is the same building I work at and the topics discussed were blockchain and how fin-tech will be changing the finance world and the Vietnamese market.

During the past few weeks, the most challenging aspect of my internship has had to be knowing whether what I am doing is right or wrong. Unlike in the United States, here in Vietnam, we don’t really get a lot of directions when we are assigned a task. This has brought me the opportunity to understand that not everything has to be planned out in order for it to be good. An example of this is the competitor shopping project I was assigned. For this project, I was sent a file with what competitor shopping is and I had a quick chat with my boss before embarking on the challenge. Now that I have finished the research, I have to make 3 different analysis and a presentation. Since I wasn’t really instructed on how to do them, I have the freedom to make the presentation however I had like. This is a gift and a curse because, with the freedom, there is a lot of ways I can take the presentation and the analysis.

The best features of my internship are the work culture, the flexibility in the tasks I do, and the ability to not only work at the office but also go and see properties. First, I really enjoy our work culture because when it’s time to work we all sit down and do it but when lunch time comes around, we all unwind, and it doesn’t feel like we are in such a professional setting anymore. This is different from what I expected because I thought that everyone would be professional and serious at all times. Second, I like that I get a lot of flexibility in the tasks I do because I feel like as I navigate trying to figure out things, I learn more than if someone told me exactly what to do. Third, I get to go out, meet other agents and see properties around the city. This has been the most surprising feature to me because I have been trusted to go and see all of the properties alone. I have learned a lot from this experience because I have gotten an insight into Saigon’s housing market, gotten to see the agents in action, and an understanding of the different leasing contracts that are being used around the city.

I have gotten to try a lot of delicious Vietnamese plates while staying in Saigon. Out of all of them, I would have to say my favorite has been Com Tam from a restaurant called Com Tam Ba Ghien.  The dish combines grilled pork chops over a bed of rice and although it might sound really simple, it is one of the best meals I have ever had in my life. I tried the dish at work while we were on break and from looking at everyone around me, I could tell I was not the only one that found the meal mouthwatering. Com Tam is definitely a food you have to try when you come to Vietnam.

This week has been great. I am making progress on my projects and I have gotten to know my coworkers more. We are still ordering food and eating lunch together but now I have also started inviting them out to get coffee after work. The main two projects I am working on are competitor shopping and the launch of a new Colliers blog on the residential website. First, for the competitor shopping, I get to act as a customer interested in renting an apartment for 6 months in Saigon. This allows me to interact with the agents in our top 3 competitor firms and the agents at Colliers. The point of the project is to get a better understanding of how the competitors do business so that we know and can improve our own services. This week I called all 3 companies, got in contact with an agent and went to see 3 properties. Moving forward I still need to meet with two more agents and look at all the information I have gathered to perform a market analysis, price analysis, and service analysis. Once I’m done, I need to compare the results and present my findings at one of our weekly meetings. My second big project is to revive the company’s blog on ColliersHome. This week I met with the residential manager, discussed how we want the blog to look and came up with a schedule and calendar for the next month. We agreed that I would write half the blogs and she would do the other half. Since I’m writing the first blog, I need to finish writing it next week and get it approved before it is uploaded on July 2nd. Moving forward we have the blog topics planned out but don’t know who will be taking over and writing half of the blogs when I leave.

I would say that my supervisors’ strengths are delegation, confident decision- making, flexibility and analysis. As the COO, she has a lot of responsibility on her hands but by delegating and explaining to others what their tasks are, she helps run the company smoothly. She is also very analytical and everything she does has a reason and purpose behind it. She always looks at all the factors that might affect a situation and examines them carefully. Research is very important to her and in her own words “Good has no meaning on its own. It is a comparative word.” so “until you know, you just don’t know!”. Furthermore, my co-worker’s strengths are that they are great team players, multi-taskers and are all bilingual. Their superb English skills have made it a lot easier to work with them and also get to know them. Furthermore, it always makes me so happy that they are constantly willing to help and teach me more about their culture.

I have learned many things since arriving in HCMC, one that sticks out is flexibility both in the workplace and outside of it. At work, random tasks are thrown at me all the time and I have learned to go with the flow and do things in order of importance. An example of this was this week when I was asked to participate in a photo shoot for the new company posters an hour beforehand. Outside of work, I have been in many unexpected situations as well. This week taking a grab to work, the driver decided to stop by the gas station on our way there without mentioning anything. Additionally, without having the ability to speak Vietnamese, I have ordered the wrong meal many times at restaurants. What is surprising to me is that I’m actually glad that I made the mistakes at the restaurants because I got to try really delicious dishes.

This is a picture of what I usually eat for lunch at work with my coworkers

Last week I mentioned that although I really liked the work I got at my internship, it had been really hard to acclimate and talk to my coworkers. This week, however, I made it my mission to speak to as many people as possible and it was an adventure. My boss and my co-workers are very friendly, and I have had lunch with them every day since.

My supervisor is Ms. Winnie Lam, the Chief Operating Officer of Colliers International.  As the COO, she oversees the company’s business operations and reports to the CEO. Some of her responsibilities are overseeing marketing initiatives and implementing better business practices, delegating responsibilities to ensure staff members grow as capable participants, and employing various initiatives to coach employees to optimize their capabilities. Her day-to-day schedule is different depending on what the company needs but she always has at least one meeting with a department.

As a marketing intern, my role is to assist the marketing team. I work 8:30am to 5:30pm and on the daily, I sit at my desk, do research, create tables on excel and attend meetings. Last week my job was to perform a competitor analysis and make a comparable of the social media posts.

This week, I received two more projects, one is to come up with a plan to revive the residential blogs on the ColliersHome website and the other is to start the research for the competitor shopping assignment. For those who may not know, real estate competitor shopping is a task where an individual searches for targets, sets up a shopping identity and builds a shopping list in order to make a market analysis, price analysis, and service analysis.     

Outside of work, an interesting personal experience I had in HCMC is the fact that I got to attend the MIB movie premiere. My friend Minh Thy got the tickets to go to the event from her internship and she asked me to join her. The movie was great but what surprised me was the fact that people really didn’t seem to mind that there where famous people all around. Moreover, the dress code was more casual than back in the states and the famous people were more approachable.

On Monday, June 3rd, 2019, I started my summer internship at Colliers International in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Although I had never heard of the company before, it turns out that it has offices all over the world in 68 countries and is ranked 2nd of the top twenty-five brokerages in the global real estate industry. In Vietnam, there are two offices, one in Hanoi and the one where I work at in Ho Chi Minh City. My company mainly focuses on commercial real estate and it offers a multitude of services including corporate solutions, brokerage sales and leasing, property and asset management, hotel investment sales and consulting, valuation, mortgage banking, and research. 

My first week at Colliers has proved to be challenging but not for the reasons I thought it would. Before starting work, I was nervous about the tasks I would be assigned because I had never worked in the marketing department of a business and personally didn’t think I had the creative mind needed for the job. On my first day, however, I was assigned to do a competitor analysis to help the marketing team come up with a new social media strategy which very much interested me because it was research. To my surprise, my challenge came from the fact that I was thrown into a foreign environment without much direction and I found it very difficult to interact with my co-workers. The office is comprised of about 50 employees and for the most part, it is usually quiet. We have an open office layout designed with the purpose of allowing effective communication while maintaining a high level of professionalism, but it hasn’t worked like that in my case.  People seem to always be too busy during the workday and by lunchtime employees usually, speak to each other in Vietnamese as they have had to speak English all day.

The building where I work at is called Deutsches Haus and it is located in District 1. It is a grade A building which means that it is in one of the most sought out locations, it’s also new and looks very modern. The location is my favorite because it is in the heart of the financial district. The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany’s embassies are right around the corner and there are plenty of restaurants around. In the mornings it is a little hard to get a taxi, but the commute is only a 15-20-minute ride and I have many options if drivers aren’t available.

Overall, as the days have gone by, I have noticed that I have been acclimating to the environment and I have really enjoyed the task that I have been assigned. Even though there have been some bumps along the way, I try to remain positive and hope that it will get easier as the days pass. I can’t wait to get to know my co-workers more and see how much I grow from this internship.

Before coming to Vietnam, I did not know much about the country or its culture, I only knew what I had learned in the pre-departure class. Although many people discouraged me from coming due to safety concerns, as soon as I arrived, I felt extremely welcome and safe. Being from a communist country, I expected Vietnam to be similar to Cuba, but my first impression exceeded my expectations. Comparing the two countries, Vietnam is much more developed and capitalized. I did not expect our amenities to look so nice, the city to have so many luxuries cars, or the internet to be so fast. Additionally, although there are nearly 10 million mopeds, the traffic isn’t as bad as I expected because in the middle of all the chaos there are unspoken traffic rules that drivers abide by.

On our 5th day in Saigon, the group drove out to Tay Ninh to go see a religious Cao Dai ceremony and go hike Black Lady Mountain. In my opinion, the ceremony was more culturally informative than the other activities we did because I was not aware of this religion and having the first-hand experience of being present at the service left a lasting impression. Our tour guide, Mr. Long, explained that the religion was created in Southern Vietnam and they believe that God is represented by a Divine Eye which is why in the temple there are approximately 6 eye paintings on the walls. He also mentioned that Cao Dai is influenced by many religions such as Catholicism and Buddhism which surprised me because they are so different.

After the service, we went on a hike which gave me time to think about my first couple of days here. After interacting with locals on my way up and getting asked to take pictures, I wonder why they are so intrigued by foreigners? Additionally, when we were on the food tour, I mentioned that I wanted to get tan and Nhu, one of our program directors, gave me a strange look and asked: “Why?” My friend Minh Thy, also mentioned that many Vietnamese wear sweaters in hot weather to block their skin from the radiation and maintain a lighter skin tone. So, my question is, why are Asians infatuated with maintaining a light skin tone? Lastly, I know that tipping isn’t expected in Vietnam, but I have been told that in certain situations we are supposed to. How do I know in which situations I should tip?

During the pre-departure class for this Vietnam trip, I learned a lot about Vietnamese culture and how the culture is similar and different from ours.  I really enjoyed reading about their exports and found it fascinating that they are the second largest exporters of coffee. I was also surprised and even shocked to learn about the concept of saving face in the culture. As an American, I am used to direct communication and generally simply communicate my feelings verbally. However, in Vietnam, I was surprised to learn that’s not how communication is achieved. People usually are quite indirect and sometimes even though they are saying something, that might not mean what they actually mean. In one of the readings we did, for example, I learned that when responding to a direct question, people may answer ‘yes’ only to signal that they heard what you said, not that they agree with it. For me, this is shocking because it means that if I disagree on something rather than saying I do, I will have to dance around the topic and hope they understand what I mean.

A similarity I found between both countries, is that they have embraced a capitalist economy and many young people are starting their own companies. Today, people in Vietnam have the idea that one creates their own success and are even described as “the most entrepreneurial people on earth” by Ted Osious, a US ambassador. Therefore, it is truly not a surprise that much like the US, the private sector and foreign companies are what keep the economy buzzing.

A cultural difference between Vietnam and the US is the concept of family.  The US is a more individualistic society while in Vietnam society is emphasized on the idea of collectivism. A typical example of this difference is that while it is common for teenagers to move out of the house after they turn 18 in western countries, in Vietnam children are more likely to live with their parents until they get married and sometimes even sleep in the same bed until that happens. Moreover, while we live in a patriarchal society, Vietnam is more matriarchal, and mothers are given great importance in the familial hierarchy.

With less than two weeks from departure, I am excited to arrive in Vietnam and learn more about the culture. I am nervous to go into the unknown but moving away from my comfort zone will allow me to grow in all aspects of my life. Having these cultural differences will help me better understand others and see things from a different perspective. At the same time, these aspects will definitely play a role in my work life, and I expect to make a couple of mistakes, but I am ready to embrace them given that we don’t learn unless we make some.