HR – CA Work Experience Program

Day 8 – Last Day

I started out my day today meeting with Allison Boomer, a communication executive and three other marketing interns. We looked at ads and talked about how we could revise and change them to make them even better. The ideas that Allison came up with were very interesting, and like none I have heard before. Something as small as making a line with a curve at the end, completely straight. It was very interesting hearing what they all had to say. After the meeting, I met with Fareena, a HR intern. One of the projects that she has been working on is getting the hashtag #SASInternLife, to go viral. I gave her some ideas about using all social media platforms, and how Instagram might not be the best one because most people are private. We also worked through how to motivate the interns, maybe with some sort of prize to the winners? Kids seem to love competition. After I did this, all of the Cary Academy students met up with Kayla in one of the meeting rooms and we had a pizza party. We reflected upon our time at SAS and had a SAS career panel. This panel talked to us about their transitions from high school to college, and then from college to the real world. All of them were members of the YPN (Young Professionals Network) at SAS, and talked about their lives and college changes/major changes.

Day 7- Diversity and Inclusion

Megan and I once again traveled to Q Building to met with Katie Henry, an HR rep for the Research and Development Division of SAS. Her job was to promote synergy between managers/workers in different departments. Getting people to work towards the same goal was her primary focus, but also walked us through the process of letting people go. After that uplifting conversation, we reunited with Kristine Stewart who we had lunch with the day before. Kristine headed the Intern Program at SAS, and together we evaluated a variety of resumes. This helped us get a grasp on what exactly SAS looks for in it’s employees and what we should be prioritizing as students and applicants.

It was then we headed to lunch, where we had the pleasure to talk with some NC State Professors of HR and a larger group of their former students. We discussed everything from some new developments they were bringing to their classes, and the state of HR both at NC State and SAS. Lastly, we met with the SAS equivalent of Jason Franklin: Danielle Pavliv. As head of Diversity and Inclusion, she was in charge of promoting the best possible environment for all employees. Currently, she is working on a project to help interns that identify as on the autism spectrum. This led into a meeting with Kristine and Kayla, where we discussed how to improve the mentoring program for summer interns.

~Kevin Lou Chen

Day 7 – New side of HR

Today, I started my day at 9:00 a.m. meeting for coffee with Kate Ulveling, a marketing intern. Kate and I met so that she could tell me more about her job. We met last week briefly, but she wanted to meet with me again, so we could go over some more things. At 10:00 a.m. I met with a woman in HR named Katie Henry. Katie’s job was different from my mentor Kayla’s, because Katie worked in HR for R&D (research and development) as Kayla works for University Recruiting. The difference is that Katie manages the HR needs for a team of people, as Kayla recruit’s new employees. Katie talked to us about both the difficulties and the rewards HR as a job has, while also joking about her job relating it to Toby from “The Office.” It is interesting how Katie uses different ideas like mind-maps and Myers Briggs to bring her teams together. After meeting with Katie, we met with Kristen Stewart and she told us all about the intern programs. She mentioned how they try to plan things throughout the summer and work to get the interns involved. After this, we had lunch with Kayla, Kristen, and two NC State professors that teach about HR. It was very interesting to hear what they teach and how they approach teaching their classes. Both of the professors worked in the HR field prior to teaching. After lunch, we met with Danielle, who works in HR for diversity and inclusion. It was interesting to see how this was a rather new job (only 7 months old), and how once Danielle figured out what she liked, she made her job happen. Prior to her, there was no specific job at SAS as a diversity and inclusion employee. After this, we got to listen in on a meeting between Danielle, Kayla, and Kristen about how to manage diversity when recruiting different employees. This was all very interesting because it was a rather new topic in SAS, so they could make up what they wanted to do as they did it.

Day 6- Toby From the Office

Following a slight schedule change, I was assigned to Human Resources for the next two days. HR works on how to motivate, attract, and keep the workers at SAS. I went back to Q Building with Megan to meet up with Kayla Woitkowski, head of the University Recruitment department and fellow Clevelander (Cavs in 6). Her job is to pitch SAS to college students across the US. They do they by having a list of schools and dividing them into 3 tiers: Tier 1 being where SAS sends people to recruit actively, Tier 2 where they help network with established connections to attract students, and Tier 3 which consists of sending information, such as flyers.

After briefly chatting with Kayla, we went to a presentation she gave to the college-age summer interns over how SAS is structured, including important terminology and the chain of command. Then it was on to lunch, where we ate with some other members of the college recruitment team. We met up with Kayla, who had to leave to get gas and chick-fil-e, where we discussed possible options for outreach for SAS. A large problem that SAS encounters is that it is targeting to companies rather than consumers. This makes it difficult for to establish national brand recognition with most Americans that don’t know about data analytics. We ended the day by listening in on a meeting that focused on advertising through Instagram.

~Neat and organized whiteboard of the HR Division

Day 6 – Overview of HR

Today I got to the office around 10:00 a.m., per usual, but instead of arriving at building C, I went to building Q. I started out the day shadowing Kayla Woitkowski, one of the managers in human resources. After spending an hour talking with Kayla, we sat in on a presentation she was giving to all of the interns. This was a very interesting presentation to watch because it was directed at students. Kayla had a game they played after each part of her presentation, kind of like a kahoot. It was interesting to see what she threw in there to catch the attention of the younger generation and how she revised her presentation based on her audience. After the presentation, we ate lunch with a woman on her team named Kristen Stewart. After lunch, we met back with Kayla and she gave us another overview of her job. She told us what type of things she’s looking for when she recruits and more about her job. From 2:00-2:30 we also met with a woman named Jessica McNulty. Jess works for the university recruiting also and showed us the process that one goes through if they are being recruited or applied for a job. At 2:30, we returned to Kayla where we sat in and gave feedback with an early-onset meeting of potentially putting SAS recruiting in an Instagram sponsored ad. The picture I have included is a diagram that Kayla drew on the board when she was giving an overview of HR as a whole.

SAS Work Experience Day 3

Today was my last day shadowing in HR at SAS. The highlight of the day was sitting in on a meeting where university recruiters and members of the marketing section of HR worked together to brainstorm and make preparations for visiting career fairs and offering info sessions at universities in the fall. The team discussed and worked through any issues with the planning, such as with the handouts to students and deciding whether they will have multiple or just a singular handout, and if those will be flyers or brochure style. They also discussed the types of items that will be given out to students, such as stickers, laptop camera covers, and buttons, and weighed which of those options would be most enticing to students and which would actually be used by them and therefore broaden the reach of SAS’s brand. For example, a student putting an ‘I heart SAS’ pin on their backpack would allow exposure as they walk around campus. They also discussed t-shirt design, and how it’s essential that the shirt has SAS’s logo and name clearly on the front of the shirt, sleeve, and back. They pointed out that although in our area and throughout North Carolina there is generally a great knowledge of what SAS is and how amazing the culture and work experience is, in more distant states college students may have no idea what SAS is. Therefore, the meeting focused on how to get SAS’s name out there to students. It was very interesting to see the behind the scenes planning, and to see how HR and marketing connect and overlap and how effectively those with different areas of expertise were able to combine their knowledge to find solutions.

Later, we got to visit the warehouse where most of the SAS merchandise given out to students is stored, pictured below:

Also, after lunch, our host Christie showed us an area outside of Building R which was a nice open space with tables to eat or work, and it also had giant chess, which is pictured below:

Day 3 at SAS – Last Day in HR

The day started as usual at 10:00 am meeting in Building Q. Instead of meeting with Christie in the morning I met with Allison to learn a little bit about what she does in HR. Allision has a unique job because she works for HR, but she is a marketer. Allison’s main job is to figure out how to best market SAS and all the jobs SAS has available for both students and professionals. After meeting with Allision to learn about what she does we headed to a meeting with the College Recruiting Team to figure out what the would like to have when going to career fairs to present SAS and the available careers at SAS. It was cool to sit in on this meeting and pitch in my ideas about some cool freebies that SAS can have to pass out to students. After this meeting, we headed to building R for lunch. (So far, I have been to 3 of the 5 cafeterias at SAS.) As always, the lunch was amazing. After lunch, we had some time to kill so we went to the SAS warehouse and shipping facility. It was interesting to tour these buildings because sometimes when you are at a company you kind of forget about the logistics and all the stuff that runs in the background of SAS. After the quick tour, we headed to an Intern Expo information meeting in Building V. The intern expo meeting was on an optional presentation that interns can give at the end of the summer of what they accomplished throughout their internship at SAS. It was cool to talk with some of the interns and hear a little bit about their background. After the intern expo meeting, we headed back to Building Q to wrap up our day and debrief on my experience with HR. Unfortunately, today was my last day shadowing HR. It was a little sad because I met so many cool people that were awesome to work with and I will miss them dearly. However, I am looking forward to new adventures in the finance department as SAS.

SAS Work Experience Day 2

This morning I got to listen in on a conference call discussing the company Handshake, which is a platform for reaching out to and recruiting university students for internships and job opportunities. The representative from Handshake displayed his presentation on our host Kayla’s screen, and he walked through what the program is and did a demo of what the platform looks like from both the perspective of a student and an employer. This was very interesting since this new program is revolutionizing how companies connect to college students and expediting the communication between them.

During lunch, we got to attend a graduation for those who had just finished the SAS Academy programs for areas such as tech support and consulting. There were many people who spoke about their experiences with the SAS academy and everything that they’d learned, which was very interesting because everyone had very nice things to say, especially about how SAS goes through the process of teaching and easing their employees into work instead of just throwing them in, which shows how much SAS truly cares about their staff.

Below is a picture of Building Q, where HR is and where I spent Day 2:

SAS Work Experience Day 1

During my first day at the SAS work experience program one of the first things we did was listen to a presentation about SAS culture and life at SAS. One of the most interesting parts of the presentation was learning some ways that data can be applied and ways that it can help the world. For example, we learned how data can be used in retail, banking, environmental matters, sports, etc. We learned about how data is used to create a profile for users, which is then used to create effective advertisements specifically for each user. The SAS presentation really showed how SAS is concerned with helping with issues in the real world; for example, data can be used to track and monitor members of endangered species.

After this presentation, we were able to shadow two different SAS employees who both work within the Human Resources department, specifically with hiring and recruiting. First, Christie explained what her job is and showed some of her everyday tasks, such as reaching out to prospective employees to schedule interviews. She also showed us the email that is typically sent out to those about to be interviewed at SAS, and the videos attached to those emails which depict life at SAS. Second, Jessica explained about her job, which is similar to Christie’s except for that it is less geared towards university students. She showed us her process for sorting through submitted resumes and how LinkedIn – the program she and her coworkers use – works.

Here is a picture of Building Q’s main sign at its entrance.