Karsten Beck
My Profile
My Profile
Name: Karsten Beck, PhD
Student-ID: s3912792
Email: s3912792@student.rmit.edu.au
GitHub: GitHub Repository
GitHub Pages: GitHub Pages
I am a German-born Australian and came to Australia in 2009. I have done a master’s degree in chemistry and a PhD in Molecular Biology at Ludwig-Maximilian’s University Munich. After that, I worked in Medical Devices Sales for 16 years and opened my own little Web & Graphic design business in 2020 as I could not find employment during Covid. I speak German and English. In 2010 I married my wonderful wife in Vanuatu on the beach without any family attending. Out witnesses were people we have met on the day, one the resort manager and the other the resort bartender. We have had a wonderful honeymoon over there.
My interest in IT started around 1988 with the purchase of my first PC. It had a configuration that would not allow you to open a text document nowadays, with its 64MHz processor and a 50 MB hard drive. It was great at the time, and the monochrome monitor (I have chosen orange/black over the usual green/black) was fancy. I have used it to type my schoolwork into my computer. In 2005, now a dedicated Mac user, I started building websites and taught myself how to do this. Four years later, meanwhile in Australia, I have completed an advanced certificate in web design with an American design school online. However, with web design comes web development. We have moved to an era where online data is heavily driven by programming. There are online shops driven by PHP and various frameworks, WordPress, and other data-driven applications, like Monday.com, Google Earth and many more. Furthermore, the scope of programming languages reaches beyond PHP with Python, Ruby on Rails and various frameworks available now for the web developers. I want to become better at this to be not scared anymore if a client asks for an online shop. I see IT as one of the most promising prerequisites for future employment. That is why I want to have a professional degree so that employers can see that I had a thorough education on this topic.
I want to be frank; I have not explicitly chosen RMIT as I study a Bachelor of Information Technology via OU. However, when I learned that RMIT ranks amongst the best universities to get this degree from, I was more than happy. I hope that RMIT will give me the foundation to build my new career in IT and programming, together with a recognised degree in Australia that employers value.
What I want to get out of my studies is the skills and knowledge to work as either a Software Developer, Systems Analyst or even as an IT consultant. I believe these jobs will perfectly suit my strengths and my love of being at the forefront of technology and helping others succeed. Therefore, I expect RMIT to teach me everything necessary to tackle one of these jobs and be knowledgeable in IT and programming. After all, I expect, this being a university degree, that we will be equipped with and introduced to the latest developments in the field.
In this role, the successful candidate will work with customers to analyse solutions for different business problems in an IT setting. Coming from a sales background, I enjoy working with people on-site, and I can see this reflected in this role. The job also encompasses the documentation and design of these solutions.
The role requires the candidate to have experience with Microsoft FFS/Azure DevOps and Git version control. There is also a requirement for knowledge in MSSQL, C#, and .NET server applications. It is rounded off with knowledge about application development and support.
My current skill set features sales experience and working with internal and external stakeholders. I have basic knowledge of SQL and PHP and more advanced knowledge of HTML/CSS. However, I have experience documenting and designing solutions to business problems, only in a different industry and within a different scope.
I believe the foundation to get hired for such a job will be my studies for Bachelor of Information Technology. This then needs to be rounded off with some internships and much practice. While they are asking for Microsoft FFS/Azure DevOps now, there might be a need for a different technology in five years as things evolve. So, keeping up to date with current developments in IT will be essential.
The 16 Personalities test revealed that my profile is Advocate. Some of an advocate's traits will be the ability to take concrete steps to realise goals and make a lasting impact. Advocates have a unique combination of personality traits that make them complex and quite versatile. Advocates generally strive to do what is right – and they want to help create a world where others do the right thing as well.
This personality type may feel called to use their strengths to uplift others and spread compassion. Advocates may see helping others as their purpose in life and are troubled by injustice. As a result, Advocates tend to step in when they see someone facing unfairness or hardship. Nothing lights up Advocates like creating a solution that changes people’s lives.
While Advocates may be reserved, they communicate in a way that is warm and sensitive. This emotional honesty and insight can make a powerful impression on the people around them.
Advocates value deep, authentic relationships with others, and they tend to take great care of other people’s feelings. That said, these personalities also need to prioritise reconnecting with themselves. Advocates need to take some time alone now and then to decompress, recharge and process their thoughts and feelings.
At times, Advocates may focus so intently on their ideals that they do not take care of themselves. Advocates may feel that they are not allowed to rest until they have achieved their unique vision of success, but this mindset can lead to stress and burnout. If this happens, people with this personality type may find themselves feeling uncharacteristically ill-tempered.
Advocates might find themselves feeling especially stressed in the face of conflict and criticism. These personalities tend to act with the best intentions, and it can frustrate them when others do not appreciate this. At times, even constructive criticism may feel deeply personal or hurtful to Advocates.
Creative – Advocate personalities enjoy finding the perfect solution for the people they care about. To do this, they draw on their vivid imagination and their strong sense of compassion. This can make them excellent counsellors and advisors.
Insightful – Advocates typically strive to move past appearances and get to the heart of things. This can give them an almost uncanny ability to understand people’s true motivations, feelings, and needs.
Principled – People with the Advocate personality type tend to have deeply held beliefs, and their conviction often shines through when they speak or write about subjects that matter to them. Advocates can be compelling and inspiring communicators, with their idealism persuading even the hardest of sceptics.
Passionate – Advocates can pursue their ideals with a single-mindedness that may catch others off guard. These personalities rarely settle for “good enough,” and their willingness to disrupt the status quo may not please everyone. That said, Advocates’ passion for their chosen cause is a crucial aspect of their personality.
Altruistic – Advocates generally aim to use their strengths for the greater good – they rarely enjoy succeeding at other people’s expense. They tend to think about how their actions affect others, and their goal is to behave in a way that will help the people around them and make the world a better place.
Sensitive to Criticism – When someone challenges their principles or values, Advocates may react strongly. People with this personality type can become defensive in the face of criticism and conflict, particularly when it comes to issues that are near to their hearts.
Reluctant to Open Up – Advocates value honesty, but they are also private. They may find it challenging to open up and be vulnerable about their struggles. This might also be because they think they need to solve their problems independently or do not want to burden other people with their issues. When Advocates do not ask for help, they may inadvertently hold themselves back or create distance in their relationships.
Perfectionistic – The Advocate personality type is all but defined by idealism. While this is a wonderful quality in many ways, an ideal situation is not always possible. Advocates might find it difficult to appreciate their jobs, living situations, or relationships if they are continually fixating on imperfections and wondering whether they should be looking for something better.
Avoiding the Ordinary – Advocate personalities tend to be motivated by a sense of having a greater purpose in life. As a result, they might consider it tedious or unnecessary to break their big visions into small, manageable steps. However, they may be setting themselves up for frustration if they do not turn their dreams into everyday routines and to-do lists. Without these specifics, their goals may never materialise.
Prone to Burnout – Advocates’ perfectionism and reserve may leave them with few options for letting off steam. People with this personality type can exhaust themselves if they don’t find a way to balance their drive to help others with necessary self-care and rest.
In the Learning Styles Test my highest match is the Pragmatist Style (0.429). This learning style is characterised by the need to be able to see how to put the learning into practice in the real world. Abstract concepts and games are of limited use to me unless I can see how to put the ideas into action. Pragmatists are likely to be experimenters, trying out new ideas, theories and techniques to see if they work. They may act quickly and confidently on ideas, getting straight to the point, and may lose patience with lengthy discussions. Learning methods especially suited to pragmatists include:
My secondary learning style is Reflector (0.333). Reflectors prefer to stand back and observe. They tend to be cautious, preferring to take a back seat. They like to collect and analyse information to help them reach their conclusions, which they may take considerable time and effort to develop. Reflectors see the big picture by using information gathered from previous experience and the here and now. Learning methods especially suited to reflectors include:
As a tertiary learning style, I show the Theorist Style (0.176). Theorists like to think through problems in a logical manner. They value rationality and objectivity and like to assimilate disparate facts into coherent theories. They are disciplined, aiming to fit things into a rational order. They are often keen on basic assumptions, principles, theories, models, and systems thinking. Learning methods especially suited to theorists include:
The Big 5 Factors Test can be found here.
Factor I: Factor I was labelled s Extroversion by the developers of the IPIP-BFFM. Factor I is sometimes given other names, such as Surgency or Positive Emotionality. Individuals who score high on Factor I are outgoing and social. Individuals who score low tend to be shut-ins.
Factor II: Factor II is labelled as Emotional Stability. Factor II is often referred to by other names, such as Neuroticism or Negative Emotionality (in these two cases, interpretations are inverted, as Neuroticism and Negative Emotionality can be thought of as the opposite of Emotional Stability).
Factor III: Factor III is labelled as Agreeableness. A person high in agreeableness is friendly and optimistic. Low scores are critical and aggressive.
Factor IV: Factor IV is labelled as Conscientiousness. Individuals who score high on this factor are careful and diligent. Low scores are impulsive and disorganised.
Factor V: Factor V is labelled as Intellect/Imagination. This factor is also often called Openness to Experience. People who score low tend to be conventional.
I am surprised, how well the 16 Personalities described my personality. I think this test reflects pretty well what I already know about myself. Only the part about burnout does not relate to me very much, as I am usually very stress-resistant.
The learning style results do not fit too well. From experience, I would see them in the opposite order, although there are elements I apply daily in each of the sections. The Big 5 Factors are difficult to interpret as the test does not clearly state when a score is high or low. I am just assuming 50 is the border between high and low. Then the test tells me that I am an introverted, emotionally stable, friendly, diligent and non-traditional individual. That is spot on.
I think these traits will make me a good team player. I know from my own experience that I can work well in a team, however, not everyone in the team might think the same way. I tend to appear quiet because I listen to what others say and think about what to do. I am more than happy to give away information, even when this might be my little secret, but I am not the first to take the initiative because I think about the problem and a solution first. I tend to come up with a solution from the second row. So, if I am in a team with very extroverted people who are chatty and talk before they speak, I might seem disinterested and distant. That is not the case, I am fully committed, but the team would see it differently. Being in a selling profession for a long time, this often was an issue.
TThis can influence whom I would like to form a team with, however, I generally can work with everyone. The only people that give me a hard time are the ones that only talk and have no substance. The bubbly ones that have to be front, right and centre and make me feel inferior. Apart from those, I can work pretty much with everyone.
My project is about building a website that can take a job advertisement as an input – assuming most job ads are available online – and searches a database for identical or similar keywords. The user can also put in an industry filter so that more relevant phrases can be displayed. So, the user will be provided with whole sentences of similar job cover letters and resumes, available on the Internet and can then select what he/she would like to use for their cover letter and resume. In a more advanced version – which is likely not part of this course – these selected phrases can then be combined in a Word document. The project might even go to the extent to be able to utilise specific templates.
In the last two years, I have written many applications for jobs. After the current Covid crisis, many people are in the same situation as me and are looking to either return to work or find something else. According to the ABS, there are currently nearly 790,000 unemployed in Australia alone. In the US, there are currently around 9.3 million unemployed, according to the BLS. So there is already a big market in Australia alone, not to mention the market a worldwide reach can provide. While there are many resume writing businesses, they often seem bound by certain rules and regulations and appear to be not very flexible when it comes to changing careers. Apart from that, their services are usually quite expensive. This is where my website will come to play, which is initially free and later on can be accessed via a monthly subscription.
When you open up the website, you will be presented with a simple search field that will take the URL of your chosen job advertisement. In a drop-down field, just below, you can pick from a list of industries. This field will represent the usual job categories like on the seek website, for example. When the user presses the search function, a PHP script will load the job advertisement in a buffer and screen for “about”, “required”, and “role” sections and extract the keywords. These sections are often in a <ul> tag or a <p> tag. The contents of these tags will be processed and screened against a database of known and common keywords. The script will then parse through these elements and collect matching keywords. These are then used to retrieve whole sentences from the database that contain these keywords, which then will be presented to the user in a list.
The database has the contents tagged with the different industries they relate to and then filters them accordingly. Of course, some of these result sentences can have multiple tags as they can be used in different industries. These whole sentences are then selected and displayed. The user can also define how many examples should be displayed at all in the initial search mask.
The data for the database will be collected with scripts that search the Internet for sample resumes and cover letters. It will also search within images, utilising OCR to extract text from those and store it in the database. One big problem I have not worked out yet is duplicates. Indeed, when scraping the Internet, the script will come up with a lot of similar or even identical results. There should be tools that compare word by word sentences to eliminate identical duplicates. However, with similar sentences, it will be more difficult. I am confident that someone will have an idea of how to do that.
The script also needs to screen for specific job titles within the scraped data to tag the results automatically. As we compare with a specific list of industries, that should not be too much of a problem as everything that follows will be tagged according to the matching industry.
The results will initially be just displayed in a list on the screen so that the user can copy and paste the sentences they like. In a more sophisticated, later version, I am planning to incorporate functionality to export the selected sentences to a word document or even provide the option to store a template – with the data that never changes – and have a complete word document exported.
To realise this project, all it needs is a computer and a hosting web service. However, the software for this project requires tools to build webpages and handle PHP code and a MySQL database installed on the webserver. Nearly every program from TextEdit to Notepad, over to Atom and Dreamweaver can fulfil this need. For the scraping function of web content, Python seems to be a good option as it can return complete websites with the BeautifulSoup package and has the functionality to handle the output. PHP also has the functionality to work with strings and regular expressions, which should help in further processing of the user input. So, Python to fill the database and PHP to access it.
If this website can be realised, it will help thousands of job seekers to write cover letters and resumes more easily. Even if they do not want to utilise the results as is, they still will give them ideas for what to write, and the hours of staring at the wall, thinking about what to put in the cover letter or resume will be over. As the average job-seeker writes dozens to hundreds of resumes, this will significantly improve the speed with which they can progress.