Kassie's Final Rotation!

My last rotation was with the Department of Education where I focused on numerous projects, including, but not limited to, creating a workshop on developing job descriptions for hiring managers, sourcing candidates for a legal internship, and resuming my work on job classifications! Working with the Department of Education (DOE) has been very beneficial, because I am basically getting to experience what it would be like to be a HR Generalist. During my rotation with DOE, I have worked on a project that relates to almost every division in the HR field from recruitment, to employee relations, to compensation, etc. This has been an intriguing experience to not only learn the different functions of HR, but to also see the functions of the DOE.

Over the past eleven weeks, I have thoroughly enjoyed this amazing opportunity, as the State Personnel Department’s Human Resources Intern. This internship has been a very beneficial experience, and has great value in it. Anyone who participates in this internship has the ability to learn and experience many aspects of HR, which cannot be taught at a college/university. I feel that I have grown a lot through this internship and have gained so much more than I ever would have in the classroom. I now have some real, tangible experience, to accompany my degree when I graduate!

I would definitely recommend this internship to anyone who is interested in the field of Human Resources. During this internship, an intern will have the opportunity to shadow different departments of HR including benefits, employee relations, compensation, recruiting, and much more. An intern also gets the opportunity to shadow and work along different HR generalists in the field, which is something the other internships I considered did not offer. The state has so many different agencies, providing interns the opportunity to learn many different perspectives of an HR Generalist’s job. Each rotation within the agencies also offers different projects for learning. I have worked on projects such as: employment verifications, professional references, job descriptions, researching rater errors, creating workshops for employers and so much more. An intern also gets to work on the HRIS PeopleSoft from time to time, which is a huge advantage in moving forward with an HR career.

I have really enjoyed my spring internship, I have learned a lot, met a lot of people, have grown a lot in my knowledge of HR, which landed me a job opportunity in Employee Relations with the State of Indiana! I can’t wait to come back to SPD upon graduation and start my full time career with the state in HR!  This internship is an excellent way to learn Human Resources, gain experience, and hopefully start your career in the HR field!

Kassie Works with Talent Acquisition

Over the last three weeks, I have been working with the Talent Acquisition Division. This division works alongside other agencies within the state and provides recruitment support to their HR directors, generalists, and hiring managers. I had numerous projects while with Talent Acquisition which were very broad in nature, and provided me with great exposure. My projects included: researching and developing an unpaid internship program for the Hoosier Youth Challenge Academy (HYCA) Cadet Counselors position; researching rater-errors for hiring managers to ensure they are choosing the best candidates during their selection process; updating the TEAM (Tips on Employment Application Maintenance) online video and script to assist applicants during their application process; and performing verification on potential new hires. I also had the opportunity to job shadow with the Employee Relations Division within the State Personnel Department (SPD).

I had a variety of projects during this rotation and I loved it! I was busy the entire time and gained a lot of great insight to what Talent Acquisition does on a day-to-day and weekly basis. I learned a lot from these projects, such as how to do research for job postings with universities and communicating with a variety of people when designing the internship program for HYCA, which developed my written and verbal communication skills. I learned how to perform the employment and professional reference verification for a potential new hire.

One aspect of these projects in particular that was very interesting to me and will be very beneficial to me with my future as an HR professional was having the opportunity to be involved in all aspects of the applicant selection process. I was involved all the way from the start including sitting in on the interview, the discussion among the recruitment specialists about the different applicants, all the way to performing the work, professional, and education verification on the applicant we were interested in extending an offer to. The Talent Acquisition team for the State of Indiana does a excellent job at being thorough during this process to ensure they are hiring the right candidate! It has been a fun learning experience to see how much time and thought goes into finding the perfect candidate for a position.

I also had the opportunity to spend time with the Employee Relations division. During this time I was able to shadow and see what goes on during the day as well as sit and discuss the ins and outs with the professionals of Employee Relations division. During this job shadow I learned what this division handles, such as situations related to family medical leave (FML), performance evaluations, employee investigations, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Affirmative Action, discrimination claims, and acting as the liaison for the employees and state agencies. Everyday in this division is different and because the state has 28,000+ employees, there are a wide range of issues that can occur. To put it into perspective for me, they provided me with examples of topics that have come up recently, and the actions they have taken to find a solution. The amount of work they do and range of situations they are able to handle is impressive. This division is so interesting to me because it is different every day, but also requires a lot of customer service and research to help those who are in need of a solution to their problem.

Although I loved the time I spent working alongside the Talent Acquisition Division, I am excited to return to the Department of Education (DOE) to continue working on the projects I started in my previous weeks, and learn about the new assignments they need me to tackle. 

Intern Kassie Works with the Department of Education!

Thus far my spring internship has proved to be an invaluable experience, providing me the opportunity to gain relevant career skills, and expand my knowledge in the field of human resources (HR). The last three weeks I have been working with the Department of Education's (DOE) amazing Human Resources Director Camille, who also supports seven additional small state agencies. 

Camille mentored me while at DOE, regularly taking time out of her busy schedule to help and guide me through the projects we were working on. She also involved me in numerous executive meetings, including an “A Team Meeting”  comprised of all the directors within the Department of Education, as well as a meeting with the Finance and Business Operations Directors about budgets and funding sources. I felt privileged to be recognized and introduced to the executive staff at Department of Education. In the meetings, I got the chance to experience intellectual dialogue that takes place in a high-level executive meeting from both an organizational standpoint as well as individual departments. 

The projects I have been working on at Department of Education were all interrelated and it was very rewarding and beneficial to see all my projects connect to make one final product. My first project was creating an up-to-date organizational chart. There are almost 300 employees within the DOE. Because this is such a large organization, people are constantly being promoted or hired on, so it is a challenge to keep it current. This project consisted of taking the organizational chart and recreating a descriptive organizational chart for the Department of Education, broken down into each department. The next project I reviewed job description profiles for each position and classification; including clerical, professional, and executive level. This project posed to be a little more challenging since each job description is coming from a different person, therefore a variety of different language usage, formatting, and information. After re-classifying each position, I then made updates to the organizational chart which included the classification from the job descriptions. The conclusion of this project was utilizing this model to create the current salary bands for each classification!

I have also started on a project I will finish up when I rotate back to the DOE. This project consists of updating an Application Selection Document, Hiring Process, and the Fill Position Request Document. It has been awesome to see what all goes into hiring a candidate, along with the work and collaboration the hiring manager and HR professional have to do in order to find the right candidate at the appropriate salary. 

My favorite part the experience with the Department of Education has been the culture. Everyone at the DOE has been very welcoming and friendly. Every day someone would venture over to my cubicle and introduce themselves, ask how I was doing, where I went to school, etc. Not only has the staff been warm and welcoming to me, they also have great relationships with one another. It has been very rewarding to be in a work environment where everyone is truly happy to be there. This experience has not only been rewarding professionally, but has also been a fun experience. 

As my week came to an end, I was definitely not ready to leave, but I am excited to see what the Adjutant General’s Office has in store for me. Not to mention, I get to return to DOE in just 3 short weeks. I’m moving back to SPD as part of my rotational internship program and am going to work with the Hoosier Youth Challenge Academy and assist in creating an internship program similar to the one I am in now! I’m feeling lucky to be selected for this rotational internship program as I can learn about different government agencies, their working environment, best practices, and make new professional connections!