Places over plans
Travelling puts me somewhere I do not already understand. I start noticing how people get around, earn a living, share space and organise ordinary days.
Personal ePortfolio · issue 01Hanoi, Vietnam
student • traveller • volunteer • still figuring things out
THẮNG
LÊ
Learning how things move, and where I want them to go.
I study International Business at RMIT University Vietnam, with Global Trade in the mix. I like unfamiliar streets, conversations with people I would not otherwise meet, and work that turns a tidy classroom idea into something useful. Logistics caught my attention because people, parcels, routes and information all have to move together. Community work, strangely enough, asks many of the same questions.
02 · The person
A little bit about me
I am a relatively relaxed person. Curiosity usually gets me moving before a five-year plan does—and I am okay with that.
People make things interesting
I like activities that pull me outside my usual university circle. A new conversation can make an afternoon feel larger than it was.
Business, with a reason
Market research, international business and data analysis interest me most when the answer can help someone decide what to do next.
Learning in the wild
A classroom gives me the framework. Workplaces, volunteer days and unfamiliar environments show me where the framework bends.
Current theory: the useful part of business begins where the spreadsheet meets real life.
03 · Route so far
Not a résumé. A route.
Some stops gave me answers. The useful ones usually gave me better questions.
- 1
RMIT University Vietnam
Where models, markets and multicultural group work first started sharing the same table.
- 2
International Business + Global Trade
Trade became less about arrows on a map and more about people making choices across distance.
- 3
GHN
Operational pressure made logistics very real, very quickly.
- 4
Volunteer activities
Small roles showed me how much coordination sits behind a day that simply “works.”
- 5
Career Development Workshop
Looking back after GHN, I stopped treating an interview as a one-way test.
- 6
Industry Partners Talk
A job title became the beginning of a conversation, not the conclusion.
- 7
Social impact direction
I still like business. I am becoming more particular about where its usefulness lands.
04 · August 2026 · looking back
Things I wish I knew earlier
This workshop came after GHN. I arrived with six months of work behind me—and better questions than I had in the 2025 interview.
I used to think a good CV was one document I could keep sending everywhere. That idea lasted until this workshop.
plain structure ≠ boring thinking
Make it easy for both readers
An ATS-friendly structure is less about gaming a robot and more about giving the important evidence somewhere obvious to live.
Read the job description like evidence
The repeated words reveal what matters. I now look for meaningful keywords, then check whether my experience honestly supports them.
One role, one edit
Tailoring is not changing who I am. It is choosing the examples that make sense for this particular role.
STAR, minus the director's cut
My answers used to become five-minute stories. Now I keep Situation and Task concise, give the room to Action, and land on a concrete Result.
Research is part of the interview
I want to know what an employer actually does, what the team is dealing with, and which claims survive a look beyond the homepage.
Bring questions of my own
The best preparation is not memorising every answer. It is arriving ready to ask about the work, the support, the pressure and the fit.
05 · Industry conversations
The job title tells you surprisingly little
Industry conversations made me less interested in polished role descriptions and more curious about the ordinary day behind them: the handovers, feedback, difficult customers, late changes and decisions nobody puts in the headline.
I began to see an employer conversation as field research. What does success look like in the first 90 days? How often do managers work beyond standard hours? What coaching does a junior manager actually receive? How much control does the role have over its KPIs?
06 · First serious role · 2025
The job I got, and the questions I forgot to ask
RoleAssistant Manager
GiaoHangNhanh (GHN)
Từ Sơn, Bắc Ninh
April—September 2025
I joined GHN because logistics looked practical, complex and useful. I wanted to understand how parcels, people, routes, data and operational decisions could possibly meet thousands of deadlines at once.
At that point, “operations” was still a neat word in my notes.
Recruitment made the environment clearer. The conversation moved quickly toward KPIs, delivery failures, staffing gaps, complaints, cost pressure and accountability. Those were real questions. I just had not yet learned that I could test the role as carefully as it was testing me.
- 01
The waiting room
I arrived early. The interviewer arrived around 30 minutes late, with little explanation. Small detail, useful signal.
- 02
The pressure test
What if couriers are absent? Parcels are late? Customers complain? Costs rise? The station misses its delivery-success target?
- 03
The honest comparison
I said GHN had strong coverage and brand recognition, but service consistency and communication could frustrate customers when deliveries slipped. The room became noticeably less comfortable.
I was so busy trying to answer their questions that I forgot I was allowed to have questions too.
Image noteThese photographs show GHN's later network environment. The centre opened after my role and is not my Từ Sơn workplace; nobody pictured is identified as me.
Getting the offer was never the problem.
The role taught me how quickly a status update becomes an operational decision. I used Excel to track performance and exceptions, followed issues across delivery workflows, and learned that an unclear responsibility can become very clear the moment a KPI is missed.
It also showed me what I had not asked: where the boundaries sat, how much after-hours reachability was normal, how variable pay worked, what coaching existed, and how much control I would have over the outcomes attached to my name.
“I still accepted the job. Getting the offer was never the problem. Understanding whether the role fitted me came later.”
07 · Community pages
Weekends I actually remember
Not every useful day needs to become a leadership story. Sometimes I registered people, carried things, sorted waste, answered a question, or simply helped the day keep moving.
cleanup context
The invisible work of a cleanup
The visible task is rubbish. Behind it sit volunteers, gloves, bags, safety, sorting and collection points. My profile records environmental volunteering in Hanoi from June 2026. What stayed with me was how ordinary coordination lets a group become useful very quickly.
A small role can still hold the door open
Registration and participant guidance were not dramatic. They were practical: help someone know where to go, reduce confusion, keep the line moving, and make a large public activity feel a little more human.
GreenHub · marine-waste monitoring
Online learning in 2025 introduced NOAA and CSIRO monitoring approaches. I keep this under learning, not field volunteering.
Operation Smile Vietnam
My supplied profile records non-medical support in 2026—fundraising, outreach and Smile Service activities. No exact public mission was matched, so I have not attached a mission photograph to it.
official event context
08 · Carry-on
Things I carry with me
01 · lens
02 · ask
03 · read
04 · listen
05 · organise
06 · show
07 · notice
08 · gather
09 · connect
Next · 09Where everything started connecting→
International Business
Connecting markets, institutions and the choices firms make across borders.
Market Research
Turning a broad question into evidence worth comparing.
Data Analysis
Finding the signal, then explaining what it can—and cannot—say.
Cross-Cultural Communication
Multicultural RMIT teams, shared deadlines, fewer assumptions.
Excel
Market comparisons, evidence tables and operational exception tracking.
PowerPoint
Making a strategy legible to someone who did not build it.
Operations Awareness
GHN taught me that timing, ownership and escalation live behind every status.
Community Coordination
Registration, visitor guidance, outreach, supplies and small practical handovers.
Storytelling + Team Communication
Giving facts a shape people can remember and act on together.
09 · Direction of travel
Where everything started connecting
I still like business. I like the discipline of understanding a market, organising evidence and making a decision. I am simply more interested now in where those skills become useful.
Logistics is a helpful bridge. A delivery station, a donation drive, a rural supply programme and an environmental campaign all have different purposes, but each needs people, resources, information and movement to meet in the right place.
I am not claiming a finished answer. I am looking toward NGOs, social enterprises, CSR and humanitarian or environmental programmes where business analysis and logistics can support work that matters to a community.
Same coordination questions. A different reason for answering them.
people
resources
information
movement
community
impact
10 · Contact / last page
I still like business. I just know now that I care where the work eventually goes.
Thắng Lê
International Business student
Traveller whenever possible
Volunteer whenever something worth showing up for is happening