Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Meet Aaron Land, our new intern!


Hi everyone, my name is Aaron Land and I am going to be one of the summer interns here at the Indiana State Personnel Department.  I will start by just giving a little background on myself.  I am from the small town of St. Paul, Indiana and I will be entering my senior year at Ball State University this fall where I am double majoring in Human Resource Management and Business Administration.  At Ball State I will be taking on the role of Vice President of Memberships in Ball State’s chapter of the Society of Human Resource Management.

It was actually at Ball State that I learned of this internship opportunity.  I had been scanning Ball State’s career website for a while looking for an internship this summer when I came upon this.  I immediately knew that this internship would hold major experiences that would help me in my future.  Shortly after seeing the posting I submitted my application, knowing that this is the internship that I have been looking for.  My interview reinforced this belief by telling me that I would not be getting people’s coffee and filing papers all day, as most people picture the typical internship entailing, but instead I would be performing tasks and given the responsibilities as if I were an entry level employee.  That hands-on experience was what interested me in this internship, and what ultimately led to my acceptance of the position when it was offered to me.

Overall, my goal for this summer is to gain a vast knowledge of the human resource functions through the hands-on experience I will be exposed to over the next few months here at the SPD.  I know that the experience will give me a competitive advantage when searching for a job following my graduation from Ball State University next May.  Although it has just been a few days, I am already excited for what the summer holds for me.  Although I know that it will require some hard work on my part this summer, I know that my coworkers are extremely helpful and willing to answer any question that I may have.

New Intern Nicole Cloyd shares her tips for finding an internship



Hello everyone!  My name is Nicole Cloyd and I am currently a senior at the Kelley School of Business in Indianapolis where I am majoring in both human resource management and business management.  I am excited to be starting my internship this summer with the Indiana State Personnel department!  I have lived near Indianapolis my entire life and am truly honored to be able to help serve the state of Indiana.  Through this blog I hope to help other college students understand what being an intern with the Indiana State Personnel department is like and I also plan to share my exciting experiences.

I first learned of the Indiana State Personnel summer internship during one of my college classes.  A recruitment consultant from the department came to my school to speak on a panel about the state’s hiring process and to provide students with information on how to build a better resume.  Hearing the recruitment consultant speak about the state department’s hiring process and office culture really sparked my interest in the position.   Because I heard about this internship in the fall, I was sure to make note of the potential opportunity so that I could refer back to it when I began to apply to internships.  Because I was unsure when the position would be posted, I was able to find out that the department was accepting applications from my school’s career services department website.  I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep track of potential internship opportunities and then make use of your university’s career services department.  The Kelley School of Business has a great website for students to look at job postings and it was there that I was directed to the Indiana State Personnel Department’s online job bank.

Having an internship is very important in order to be competitive in the field of human resources.  I believe that this internship will provide me with an opportunity to further build on my experience within human resources.  I have been given a schedule in which I will be able to experience all of the different departments within the Indiana State Personnel Department as well as many agencies that the Personnel Department works with.  I am excited to be able to broaden my knowledge and skills while serving the state of Indiana.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Hands-On Experience - Harsh Patel


Here I am in the last week of my internship and I can’t help but wonder-where did the last two months go? I started my internship with the recruiting division and will end with recruiting. I truly can’t believe that my time at SPD is pretty much over. I've learned so much and gained tons of experience, thanks to my motivating colleagues in the recruiting division. Though sometimes the workload and new projects could be challenging, I can now go forward with the confidence that I've faced those challenges and beat them. My spring with SPD was definitely unforgettable and filled with incredible experiences that I never would have been able to get elsewhere.

Now, I’ll talk about my projects and hands-on-experience with the recruiting team during my first few weeks of my internship that were carefully planned and structured. My first day was an extra-ordinary day of meet and greets with division directors including the Chief of Staff, Deputy Director of Field Operations, Talent Acquisition  Employee Relations, Employee Engagement, HR Data, HRMS and many more. It was so inspiring to hear from them and their experience at SPD.

On my second day, I set up my email and email signature - getting a “.gov” email domain felt so proud and encouraging.  Furthermore, I learned about the SPD structure, entire recruitment life-cycle, and some general policies. From third day, I was ready for hands-on-training on various HR tasks and daily duties that continued for two consecutive weeks. It started with creating job openings and screening questions in PeopleSoft, learning about civil service reform and how it relates to hiring practices, screening and routing qualified candidates, conducting background checks, E-verify, and finally, preparing candidates for hire. It was extensive training and my first experience with PeopleSoft so, sometimes I felt overwhelmed but gradually picked up and learned a lot. Again, thanks to the helping attitude of the recruiting team that made it possible.

Furthermore, I also received training for managing interview schedules and interview evaluation for candidates. During this time, I had one of my most memorable, favorite, and surprising experience when I got chance to interview a candidate with Director of Talent Acquisition that was not on my schedule. Astonishingly, I was not as nervous being an interviewer as compared to being an interviewee. I learned how to professionally communicate with candidates during interviews, ask questions, and take necessary notes. It was a nice experience sitting on the other side of table.

During my last few weeks with recruiting, I worked on various projects and there were some cool (many) things that I learned like sourcing candidates on various job boards, writing blogs, creating a video for recruiting and E-newsletter for hiring managers, researching ways to create a recruitment/ HR toolkit, and providing assistance for buying job-fair banners by getting quotes from agency’s approved suppliers.

Overall, my experience with recruiting team and SPD as an intern has been truly rewarding. I feel very fortunate to be working for an organization that is going through an exciting time of growth and development. SPD is truly an efficient government agency with dedicated employees.