by Chris Frede on July 12, 2010
Women of HR - the beginning
One cool night in Chicago, a group of women representing various ages and backgrounds gathered in a room filled with laughter and great conversation over pomegranate martinis. From this gathering, an idea to create the Women of HR website was created. The goal of this website was to create a place where women can go to get information, discuss the issues that impact their lives, and find the sense of community and collaboration that the founders felt that fateful night in Chicago.
Trish McFarlane discussed the Women of HR site on her blog May 21, 2010. The Women of HR founders include a group of fun and smart social media and HR professionals - Lisa Rosendahl, Trish McFarlane, Shauna Moerke, Charee Klimek, Sarah White, Jennifer Payne, Byron Abramowitz, and Lance Haun.
The website also has content from contributors who include Andrea Ballard, Meghan Biro, Debbie Brown, Tammy Colson, Traci Deveau, April Dowling, Krista Francis, Deirdre Honner, Cindy Janovitz, Jennifer Miller, Lois Melbourne, Franny Oxford, Diane Prince, Becky Robinson, Kimberly Roden, Laurie Ruettimann, Rachel Salley, Robin Schooling, Mike VanDervort and myself.
Today is my first post on the Women of HR and I am excited and a little nervous. This post is a bit more personal than the ones typically written on this site. I am very excited about the future of the Women of HR and look forward to continued contribution.
Thank you to the founders for this great idea.
by Chris Frede on June 24, 2010
Interns can be an asset to any HR department. About six months ago, Ben Eubanks wrote this post in response to a post about interns written by Matt Cholerton. I agree with Matt that interns can make your department more efficient while providing the intern with a great HR experience. This also gives you an opportunity to see their work in the event you would consider them for employment.
One area interns can make an impact is the talent acquisition team. Can interns be the talent acquisition secret weapon? I think so and here are a few examples:
Research Support
- Interns can conduct research on competitors. Who they are, capabilities, employee lists, alumni and contact information.
- Conduct key word searches on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or Boolean searches to surface contacts for the recruiter to network with.
- Identify local job boards, social networks and professional organizations applicable to the area you are researching.
- Capturing this data will create a good call and networking list for the recruiter. The intern can even help schedule calls for the recruiter.
Monitoring
- Join applicable online groups and monitor the activity in the groups.
- Hash tag monitoring on Twitter. This is a great way to get participant lists.
- Competitive intelligence to monitor competitor activity. Follow competitors on Twitter and Facebook.
When having an intern support you:
- Give them as much information as possible. Remember the support the intern provides you is only as good as the investment you make.
- Provide background on the project and insight into the goal. Afterwards, it is also good to let the intern know the end result and the role they played.
- Have regular update meetings to check progress. This is also a good opportunity to discuss any challenges the intern has run into.
- Listen and be open to the interns thoughts and ideas.
Remember, interns are hungry for information – so give it to them. A little investment will go a long way, as well as make the talent acquisition team more productive. Do you have interns support your HR department? What are they working on? If you do not currently have intern support – try it.
Extreme HR In The Bering Sea
March 29, 2010I have to admit it, I am a fan of Deadliest Catch. Deadliest Catch is a documentary on the Discovery channel that captures events aboard fishing boats in the Bering Sea during the Opilio crab season. The Opilio crab season runs about one month or until each boat catches their quota of crab. This show has all the elements [...]