Thursday, October 31, 2013

Jon learns all about Talent Acquisition

The past two weeks have been great! We have a list of projects that we needed to work on during the two weeks spent within the Talent Acquisition division of SPD. This was a good time to get comfortable being in the office every day and a great chance for some time management.

One of the things we worked on was suggestions of how to recruit diverse candidates. Indiana is becoming a more diverse state and Governor Pence wants to ensure state government continues to reflect the demographics of our state . Another project involved creating a survey and gathering email contacts in order to learn about background check process of other Indiana hospitals. This information could help state operated hospitals recruit people in a more efficient way.  Another project that is in the works is a tool kit for managers with information about the full cycle recruiting process. This will be a great asset for hiring managers throughout the state and answer any questions about how to get the right people on the bus. A very exciting project that we completed involved offer letters. We had to gather all the offer letter templates from all the larger state agencies. They will be used to create an automatic offer letter component through the state’s HRIS. This will free up a lot of time for the different agencies to focus spend more time on the most value-added HR functions.

One very exciting day involved the meet and greets. All the interns had the chance to meet with the division directors of the SPD. They all took turns and gave us 15-20 minutes out of their day. We had the chance to gain an overview of the departments they ran and have our questions answered.


My time with the Talent Acquisition division within the central office was a lot of fun and a great chance to learn about how the centralized HR functions of the state work. I am now going to rotate out to the Department of Child Services’ Marion County office where I will spend four weeks. Check back for an update then!

Intern Bianca learns at SPD

Within the first two weeks of my internship I have learned a lot. I have had the opportunity to meet the various departments that make up the State Personnel Department and have met individuals who work in Talent Acquisition, Benefits, Employee Relations, and Compensation and Organizational Design. In addition to meeting these wonderful individuals, I have had the pleasure of working on numerous projects and learning various things within the Talent Acquisition Division.

One of the projects I have been working on is additional avenues to attract minority populations to careers within state government, in an effort to continuously improve diversity within executive positions. To figure out ways to target diversity in jobs with Indiana State Government, I was directed to work on a project where I reached out to companies that either offered a career fair or offered a website that allowed job postings to minority populations.  Unfortunately, I discovered that the majority of the job bank websites are catered to areas with a much more dense population of  diverse citizens- such as Florida and California regions. However, I was able to find a diversity career fair in the city of Indianapolis that the Talent Acquisition team could attend in 2014.

Another project I have been working on is developing an HR tool-kit for hiring managers. When developing this tool-kit I designed a fictitious webpage with easy navigation meant to outline the details of the recruitment business process for them. The basic layout featured processes specific to creating a requisition, candidate application review, interview, background check, offer letter, and an on-boarding schedule.

Finally, in my first two weeks I have learned how to conduct background checks and employment verifications as I will be processing these often when I begin my rotation in the field.


I have enjoyed my time here at the State Personnel Department working on the tasks and projects assigned to me as well as learning about the different divisions of SPD.  I am looking forward to the experience the next few months holds for me in rotating to the Small Agency Field Operations division, the Department of Health, and the Department  of Child Services.