What I Learned as a Human Resources Intern

I'm Diana Jago, and I had an exceptional internship experience with Intern Pursuit.

My internship experience was pretty unique to start off with. I was studying abroad. Not only was studying abroad one of the most culturally valuable experience I've ever experienced, it also became my entry point to getting immersed into and learning about the professional world outside of my home. In that way, studying abroad can be one of the greatest experiences for anyone and not just with regards to career.

Having the opportunity to study abroad in the United States through their Community College Initiative (CCI) Program provided me with a once-in-a-life-time opportunity. If you've never heard of it, the Community College Initiative (CCI) Program is a U.S. Department of State fully-funded grant program for participants from underrepresented and under-served communities. The opportunity it gave me: to embrace numerous valuable lessons in Human Resources realm, including but are not limited to the onboarding process, social media check-ins, and events management while also getting to share my culture.

Coming to the United States from Timika, a small town on the southern coast of Papua, Indonesia with a population of around over one hundred thousand, and having the privilege to study as a Human Resources Specialist at Valencia College has helped me realize how exceptional my CCI program experience has been. Primarily, without a doubt, my internship experience with Intern Pursuit has taught me skills and strategy that I'm applying now as a new addition to Lembaga Pengembangan Masyarakat Amungme dan Kamoro (LPMAK), a community development organization in Timika. This organization takes care of the development of two of the local tribes residing in and originally from Timika, Papua, called the Amungme and Kamoro.

Looking back on my experience with Intern Pursuit, I can make the case that one of the more valuable HR lessons I learned was about the onboarding process in the organization and how crucial that process is in terms of the time it takes for the new hires to start generating a return afterwards. I learned how important it is for the employer to go through this process carefully, but efficiently, as its effectiveness will determine the transition-learning period for new hires and the costs in their training and early error. This includes familiarizing them with the environment, the organization’s policies, benefits, preferred communication style, and mission. I was able to learn many different steps of this process because I was allowed to have hands-on experience, where my supervisor and I dealt with a number of employment-related paperwork and details.

In addition to how crucial an onboarding process in an organization is, scheduling and promoting events also play a crucial role in any organization. Through Intern Pursuit, I learned how to schedule and promote events efficiently and effectively and how to use the appropriate media and tools to achieve that. I was so glad that I was able to learn this and do this using an online, US-based global platform called Eventbrite. With Eventbrite, anyone can create, share, find and attend events for every passion. In terms of a professional approach, Eventbrite makes it possible for any organization to succeed in scheduling, promoting, and marketing their events.

Two-way communication is of the utmost importance at Intern Pursuit. This communication approach creates an environment where people can share their thoughts, ideas, opinions, address their concerns and maintain relationships across the social structures in place. This approach exists to better help all forms of work communication, especially for work-related issues that emerge time to time. Another platform I learned and used to help support this two-way communication and general workflow was Google Hangouts. I remember one time I couldn’t make it to the office for my usual internship schedule with Intern Pursuit and my supervisor utilized Google Hangouts to keep the workflow going; she got ahold of me using this unified communications service platform to make sure that I was doing just fine in terms of work assignments and its progress. This platform allows my supervisor and I to initiate and participate in text, voice or video chats addressing the work-related issues and assignments. I was, without question, so glad to learn that this sort of platform existed that could help solve some of the troubles one faces when working long-distance and remotely.

Having gained the skills and knowledge of onboarding processes, scheduling, event promotion, and the importance of maintaining two-way communication, I know that I have become a better professional because of Intern Pursuit. I have learned first-hand myself and seen how helpful it is to an organization executing projects or tasks of these type. I certainly will be taking these valuable skills with me as I move into other professional opportunities.