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[[♪upbeat music♪] [Commercial Leadership Program (CLP)]]
[[C. Russell] You are listening to Jobs in Pods.]
[Welcome to Jobs in Pods, the only podcast where you can hear real employers]
[talk about their jobs and tell you what it's like to work there.]
[I'm your host, Chris Russell.]
[This jobcast will feature GE Motors' Commercial Leadership Program, or CLP.]
[It is an 18-month program designed to develop commercial talent]
[within the GE Motors business.]
[Qualified candidates can expect a great deal of exposure and job experience]
[from three rotations within GE Motors.]
[It includes formal classroom training in GE's state-of-the-art facilities,]
[mentoring from senior leadership, and career planning during 18 months,]
[leading to a full-fledged commercial role.]
[Joining us today to discuss the role is Motors recent CLP graduate Mike White.]
[Hello, Mike. Welcome to Jobs in Pods.]
[[White] Thanks, Chris. Glad to be here. >>[Russell] Excellent.]
[[White] I chose GE because, for one, GE is a very well-respected company,]
[always in the Fortune Top 10 or 8 or 5,]
[very respected by other companies, and also because GE is in so many different industries]
[It sells so many different products that a person could work with GE]
[for their entire career and be in numerous different industries.]
[[Russell] Mike, describe a typical day of a CLP]
[and maybe tell us about some of the projects you are currently working on.]
[[White] A typical day might be that I would work for an hour--]
[spend an hour with one of our experts around the business,]
[going over our motors, learning about motors.]
[And then I might work on a current project that I'm working on,]
[for example, creating a price increase process to formalize]
[and standardize the process that we go through]
[every time that we have a price increase.]
[That's an example of a project that I worked on.]
[On top of that, throughout the rest of the day I might be answering emails]
[and supporting our inside and outside salespeople randomly throughout the day]
[with any systems support that they need.]
[[Russell] By the way, what are some of the products of GE Motors that you guys sell?]
[[White] We sell a very large line of industrial motors,]
[anywhere from 1 horsepower to 100,000 horsepower]
[and in many different industrial applications.]
[[Russell] What kind of training do you receive in this kind of position?]
[[White] You receive formal and informal training.]
[Informal would be like I was describing before,]
[where I would just set up an hour where I could spend one-on-one time]
[with one of our motor experts around the business]
[and receive product training that way.]
[More formalized training would be our GE CLP courses]
[that we would all travel to go to one location.]
[It would include CLPs from all different businesses within GE.]
[An example of one was a Selling and Negotiations class,]
[where you would spend a few days or spend a week with an outside consultant]
[on GE, going over training on selling or negotiating. >>[Russell] Right.]
[There are numerous--four in all--formal training classes]
[where you'll travel and spend a few days in a location with CLPs from other businesses.]
[[Russell] If I had to ask you, Mike, what are the two or three things]
[that you really like about your job?]
[[White] The biggest thing probably is that as a CLP within GE]
[you have the opportunity to make a difference within your business.]
[If you come up with an idea, if you see something that's not working]
[properly in your eyes or that could be working better,]
[everyone around the business is very willing and open to listen to your idea]
[on how to improve that, and they're willing to listen,]
[so therefore, anything you see, if you push hard enough,]
[you continuously have the opportunity to make a difference within your business. ]
[Some of the other things I would say are the people.]
[The people that I work with I really enjoy working with--]
[everyone around our business and everyone that I've really interacted with]
[I would say the opportunity to make a difference,]
[working with the people that I work with,]
[and then also being on the sales side of the company]
[where you really have again, along the same lines, an opportunity to make a difference.]
[You have an opportunity to truly grow and bring in revenue.]
[[Russell] How would you say the CLP role challenges you?]
[[White] It really forces you to, for one, expand your knowledge ]
[of a certain product line and a certain industry.]
[Before I entered the CLP role, I had little to no knowledge of electric motors]
[and little to no knowledge of the mining industry]
[and the different industries that we sell motors into--power generation and things.]
[This role has challenged me to learn about motors ]
[and to learn about the industries that we sell motors into.]
[If you don't learn about those things, then you're not going to be successful]
[So that's one of the other ways that it's really challenged me.]
[The different tasks and the different responsibilities that you have]
[and the things that you have to do really forces you to become a better time manager]
[If you don't improve yourself and if you don't challenge yourself to improve]
[in time management and organization, then you may struggle]
[[Russell] So it sounds like this role in CLP really is going to help you]
[in your future career development and progression at GE. Is that correct?]
[It'll help me in a lot of ways.]
[One of the big ways is it's challenged me to expand my knowledge of industries]
[and become a better time manager and more organized.]
[Those are things that will be applicable to many different roles throughout my career.]
[The other thing the CLP program does is it really allows you ]
[to see a few different functions within the commercial side of the business--]
[One of the rotations is product management.]
[So on that rotation I got a real good understanding ]
[of what our product managers in the business do and what that job entails.]
[I also did a commercial operations rotation,]
[so I got to see what commercial operations is all about]
[and what the managers of commercial operations do on a daily basis.]
[And you kind of compare and contrast that to the product management rotation]
[and then also the headquarters sales rotation too.]
[So you really see three different sides of the commercial side of the business,]
[which is extremely valuable, I think, down the road.]
[Now I have a good understanding of what those different functions]
[within the commercial side are and mean]
[and can start to develop feelings towards which one I may like more]
[or which one I would like to do maybe long-term.]
[[Russell] All right. That will do it for this edition of Jobs in Pods.]
[Mike, thank you very much for your time today. >>[White] Thank you, Chris.]
[[Russell] For more information on careers with GE, visit gecareers.com]
[To hear more jobcasts like this, visit jobsinpods.com]
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