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.

Whitney Comes Back to Talent Acquisition

For the last two weeks, I have been working with the Talent Acquisition Division (TAD). Talent Acquisition works alongside other agencies within the state and provides support to the HR generalists in the field, specializing in recruitment. I had numerous projects while with TAD which were very broad in nature and gave me great exposure. Some of my projects included: researching and finalizing approved budget purchases; researching an upgrade to an online job posting site; coordinating on-campus interviews for FSSA/Disability Claims Adjustors; and updating queries and statistics of employee data for diversity PowerPoints in preparation for a presentation.

Needless to say, I had a lot of projects during this rotation and there were many more I didn’t even get to work on, but I loved it! I was busy the whole time and gained a lot of great insights into the things Talent Acquisition does on a day-to-day and weekly basis. I learned a lot from these projects. I learned how to do research for job postings and keeping budgets in mind when improving efficiencies. I communicated with a lot of different people when coordinating on-campus interviews, which helped develop my communication skills through email and phone communications. I also learned how to dissect a query on excel and create spreadsheets and tables quickly.

One project in particular that will stick out to me was the diversity project. There is so much that goes into diversity and recruiting diverse employees. The state looks at each agency’s diversity statistics and compares the statistics of citizens of Indiana to see how closely it matches to our employee population. I enjoyed seeing how an organization does this because it is important to have your workforce look similar to that of the available workforce. I was able to look at the diversity within many positions and get a better idea of what the entire state looks like in its diversity and how well the state matches that in employment. This is very important to do in employment, and the state is working very hard to do that. I took the queries of the employees and then divided them accordingly into the pre-set categories of the PowerPoints and updated them. 

I very much enjoyed my time with Talent Acquisition. It was busy, challenging, and very rewarding. Next I go to the Department of Child Services.

Whitney Works with DWD

For the last two weeks I have been with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development (DWD). DWD serves the worker and the employer to ensure workplace success. DWD is committed to innovating and invigorating Indiana’s economic future. Primary services include: WorkOne Centers, Unemployment Insurance, Labor Market Information, Regional Workforce Strategies and Professional Training. All of this information can be found on the DWD website at www.in.gov/dwd. During my rotation I have worked closely with the HR Director and HR Generalists who support this agency. Just like most of the HR staff embedded in the agencies, these ladies work together to serve and support the management team and employees of DWD.

During my rotation with DWD I had several tasks I completed and a few projects that I worked on. I researched personnel files on PeopleSoft and verified employment standing (active vs. termed employees). I then would purge the termed employee files to prepare for send off to records. A new part of PeopleSoft I had the opportunity to work with was the recruiting module. In this project, I searched within PeopleSoft to find job descriptions. I then pulled the job descriptions off of PeopleSoft to combine them onto an excel spreadsheet to have them altogether in one file. Another project I had was very similar to the project I had at the Indiana State Department of Health; I emailed supervisors and managers to collect job descriptions and put them onto a shared folder to potentially have readily available on an electronic database. This project/compilation will assist the HR team in populating hiring requests as well as potentially electronic performance appraisals at year’s end.  Finally, a project I worked on the entire time I was with the DWD was with performance appraisals. I would receive the performance appraisals, verify all correct parties had signed the performance appraisal, and then make copies to prepare them for their personnel files.

I had a very good experience at DWD and I thoroughly enjoyed working with the HR team here. I look forward to my next rotation with Talent Acquisition!