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Student SHRM Competition. One Students Perspective

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On February 18th 2012 a group of four UIS students traveled toIllinois State University in Bloomington for the 2nd annual SHRM HRCompetition.  This was the first one thatUIS has ever participated in.  Wereviewed a couple of Human Resource cases about a month before the competitionin preparation, but we had no idea what to expect.

  When we got to ISU we weretreated very professionally.  We wentthrough a couple of presentations in the regards to Human Resources and whycompanies need them.  Our team was then escortedto our room where we would be spending the next four hours.
  The idea behind thesecompetitions is that a group is given a case to review.  No one except the person handing out thecases knew what they were. The cases could be about companies with law, harassmentor personnel issues.  After given thecase we then had four hours to deliberate and come up with a solution to theproblem that would inevitably better the company.  We are then to create a power pointpresentation and a two page paper explaining what we thought would be the best decisionfor the company. 
 In the case UIS was assigned, thecompany had to get rid of their V.P. of Sales. They had many people apply for the position and had narrowed it down tothree applicants who were qualified for the position in question. We then hadto figure out who the best fit for the company would be and why.  We deliberated on what we thought the bestsolution should be and then set forth in making our power point presentationand typing the paper. 
You never realize how fast four hours can go by until you are locked in aroom to complete something like this.  Itwas an amazing experience.  I was really nervousduring the presentation but we all got through it.  ISU ended up winning but there were fiveteams that participated and only ten points separated ISU from all the otherteams.  I was really happy to be invitedto participate in this competition and out of everything I was glad to berepresenting UIS.
From this experience I learned skills that should always be done whengiving a presentation.  For example:always introduce the participants, explain all of the slides and always speakclearly.  I also learned more about mywriting skills.  For example: make sureto write in the same perspective through the whole paper and always explain thedecisions and reasons behind them so that the reader can understand what isgoing on.  These two things that Ilearned from this experience I feel are things that I can take with me after Igraduate and continue on with my career. Presentation skills, writing skills, problem solving and time managementare the key points that I learned through this competition.

Written by McKenzie Cunningham aka @McKenzieCunnin1 (on left of picture)
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