HR Society Meeting Minutes: 2/17/10

Guest Speaker: Julie McCord

How do the HR Games work?

There is a handbook online on the SHRM Site that explains what the HR games are about, how to study, etc.
-It is basically a group of schools that enter and you are set up with a schedule to compete.
-It is like a Jeopardy game, there is one or two judges who read the questions and make sure the
answers are correct. The games are very fast paced.
-Games are free to enter but we have to worry about how to get there and pay for your own
expenses.
-Whoever wins the round moves on to the next round the next day, if you don't win the round
you are eliminated.
-There is a conference where you can learn things, meet and network with other students.
-The last group that went spent the same amount of time preparing as our study group.
-It is important to go through the flashcards.
-The questions in the study group questions are more lengthy than what you will get in the
game.
-You need to get used to compacting down the question because you will not get all of the
information that you will be looking for that you may be looking for when you are going through
them while you are studying.
-The questions are from all sections of the PHR Exam.
-You may get some questions that you know really easily but some that you will not know.
-It works best if everyone on the team concentrates on a specific area so that you have a good
knowledge of that area.
-there are at least 6 rounds that you go through during the games. There were different
rooms last time so it is difficult to know.
-On the way to the games you can also prepare for the games on the way there.
-The flashcards are different colors so you can set them up by category and keep going
thorough the questions. When you go through the questions, if you were to compact the
question down, what would it sound like?
-the games are the 14th through the 20th.
-Letter to the student government to obtain support for the games.
-Need to determine how much money to request from the senate.
-Julie will be calling Angie to see if we can get a few minutes at one of the SWHRMA
luncheons for a fund raiser.
-The reason to get the PHR is because people who have it know where the red flags are
compared to someone who do not have it. Most people who do not pass the PHR, fail because
they do not take the exam seriously. They do not believe that the exam is as hard as it really
is. Both exams (PHR and SPHR) are the hardest exams that they have taken.

Julie works in consulting for companies who do not have a full time HR person or cannot have a full-time person. It is getting tougher as time goes along to get the HR knowledge. She works as the HR person for these companies. Worked as a manager in retail and then decided that she wanted to move out of that type of environment.
-One of the important parts of HR is training the managers how to do their jobs.
-eg. training managers to see the value in performance reviews.
- Terminating employees
-need to make sure that someone knows that their job is on the line. when you tell them this
to begin with then they are making the decision rather than you.
-Our current economy is making people more litigious.
-Julie is happy to be a mentor for our students.
-When getting into HR you need to get your foot in the door however you can and then keep it
in there.