Sadie Works with DWD

I had the pleasure of spending the last two weeks learning with the HR ladies of the Indiana Department of Workforce Development (DWD). While I was in DWD, I worked with their recruiter to put together a toolkit for the hiring managers in the WorkOne field offices. WorkOne centers are a huge part of DWD’s system and are facilities that try to get unemployed or underemployed people back into the workforce. They help people seek jobs, get information for learning opportunities, get the right skills they need for a new career, and help them file their unemployment. While I was with DWD I had the opportunity to visit one of the busiest WorkOne centers in the state. We went to get a better understanding of the job duties and skills needed for the positions within the facilities. The information that we received will be used to develop better job descriptions for the positions, as well as help in the creation of interview questions to assist hiring managers with their hiring process to ensure they are hiring the right person for each position.

These new job descriptions and interview questions are going to be put in the new toolkit I have been working on for the hiring managers. The managers are going to be able to use the toolkit to help them through each step of the hiring process. There is information in there from how to submit a request for a new position, to reference checking, to interviewing information. This toolkit should hopefully alleviate quite a few questions that the managers have when hiring new employees.

Working with DWD has been a wonderful learning experience for me. I never realized just how much work went into hiring a new employee. Thanks to the wonderful HR staff in DWD and their recruiter, I now feel that I have many tools that I can take with me when I enter the HR world. I’m excited to get back to SPD for my next two weeks. Among other things, I will be job shadowing benefits, compensation, and employee relations. This should be very interesting!

SPD Welcomes Intern Sadie!

Hello, everyone! I’m Sadie Flynn and I am the new summer intern here at the Indiana State Personnel Department. Let’s get this started off with a little information about myself. I just graduated from the IU Kelley School of Business downtown at IUPUI with a Bachelor’s Degree in both Human Resource Management an

d Business Management! Woohoo! With that being said, I still have a few classes to pass over the summer before I can actually receive my diploma. I am super excited about this opportunity with the State Personnel Department, and I am ready to learn as much as possible.

                I was introduced to this internship by one of my HR professors. She was always sending out emails about internship opportunities to her students. This internship stood out to me in particular because interns get to rotate through several different agencies to get first hand HR experience, the size of the organization is about as big as it gets, and I had heard about how great of an internship it was from previous interns. Did I mention that it’s paid? How could I pass up this chance to soak up as much knowledge as possible before I get out into the real world in August? I knew this internship would be my gateway into the HR world.

                I have only been here for a week, and feel as if I have learned more in this short time, than I did in full semester of college. For this week I was with the Talent Acquisition Division working with Nicole Russell and her amazing team of recruiters. They have been very welcoming and have provided me with a wealth of PeopleSoft knowledge. I have learned how to create vacancy request and a new job posting, how to screen and route job requisitions, how to perform an automated background check, how to send out an automated offer letter, and how to prepare a candidate for hire.  Working with this software is something I was really looking forward to doing. It is very critical to have experience with an HRIS system within the HR field, so I know this will be a great tool to carry with me. It is overwhelming the amount of work they put into hiring for just one position, and they have to do it for thousands. What this agency does on a daily basis is amazing, and it’s been a great learning experience for me. I am so excited to get to the other agencies to see what they do, and to gain even more knowledge for myself. I will be familiarizing myself with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development (DWD) for the next two weeks. I can’t wait to join DWD’s HR team to further my education in the HR world!

Whitney's Internship Comes to a Close

Over the past fourteen weeks, I have thoroughly enjoyed the great opportunity of working as the State Personnel Department’s Human Resources Intern. This internship has been a very beneficial experience. I have rotated between seven different state agencies and gained a lot from each rotation. This internship has great value in it. Anyone who participates in this internship has the ability to learn and experience many aspects of HR that cannot be learned in the classroom. 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 compared to a regular classroom setting.

I would definitely recommend this internship to anyone who is interested in the Human Resources field. 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. This is something other internships cannot offer. The state has so many different agencies, that an intern will see and 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 checks, professional references, job descriptions, filing background checks, exit interview surveys, diversity, advertising research 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.

Like I said, I have really enjoyed my spring internship, I have learned a lot, met a lot of people, and grown a lot in my knowledge of HR. This internship is an excellent way to learn Human Resources and gain experience along the way.

Intern Whitney works with Larue Carter

This week I had the opportunity of working with the Larue D. Carter Memorial Hospital. Larue Carter is a psychiatric hospital of 159 beds, ranging in ages of 8 - adult. Larue Carter is under the Family and Social Services Administration. During this rotation I had the opportunity of shadowing one of the HR generalists. She spends most of her days very busy, multi-tasking, working on projects, and communicating with the Larue employees.

While shadowing this HR Generalist, I learned a little more about the process of getting new applicants ready for hire. I went through several applicants who were ready for hire and ran a background check for them on PeopleSoft. I then called applicants and told them to check their email to sign a release for the background check and drug screening. One thing that is unique to Larue Carter is the types of employees that are employed. While, there are many employees who are qualified (HS graduate), it is important to make sure you are selecting the right candidates to work with the patients, find someone reliable and consistent. The HR Generalist also deals with FML and puts employees back in the system upon their return. She also sets up new employee files, conducts training for new employees, and trains them how to set up their benefits.

Being able to shadow a generalist was very beneficial. I was able to see many different aspects to HR and what a generalist can work with from a day to day basis. Some important things I learned are that as a generalist you are always going to be busy and there are always going to be interruptions in your day. It is important to stay very organized, be able to multitask, and work through projects over multiple days. Because you can be interrupted so many times in a day, you may not be able to concentrate on one project from start to finish it one sitting. I was able to see how this generalist sorts through her workload. I gained some great insight from this shadowing opportunity at Larue Carter.

Whitney Goes to DCS

For the last two weeks, I have been with the Department of Child Services (DCS) and have really enjoyed getting to know the Human Resources Generalists here. It was a good two weeks! Some of my projects at DCS were: research of Exit Interviews and reasons employees leave; research of universities that have social work programs; signing up for career services accounts at schools and posting jobs to assist with recruitment efforts for Family Case Managers.

For my first project, I researched Exit Interview responses, and specifically why employees leave. I looked at these responses as a whole as well as by region. I identified the top reasons for employees leaving and put them into a spreadsheet with data tables. I also wrote a report of my analysis and how the exit interview could be improved.

My next project was researching universities. A position that DCS is constantly recruiting is a Family Case Manager. To help in finding universities to target for this position, I researched which universities had a social work or related degree program. After I researched which universities had a social work program, I went back to those universities and signed up for their career services site. I created accounts for the schools and the rest of my time at DCS has been posting the Family Case Manager position on these career sites.

Again, this rotation has been very beneficial. A great thing about this internship is getting to rotate and do so many different projects. I learned about exit interviews that are given to employees and I got a lot of recruitment experience in posting specific jobs to specific career sites. This internship has been great and I can’t believe it is almost over. I only have one rotation left. I will be going to Larue Carter Hospital for my final rotation starting Monday.