Four HR students recently had the opportunity to represent the UVM School of Business in attending the Society of Human Resource Management’s Northeast Conference, held at Rutgers University. This two-day event combined HR Games with a variety of learning tools providing dedicated HR students from the Northeast an opportunity to showcase their interest in Human Resource Management.

            The Society for Human Resource Management, or SHRM, provides student members with a rich variety of HR related opportunities. The conference, held on March 30 and 31^st was dominated by the HR game competitions between schools representing much of the Northeast. After the heated finals on the 31^st, Robert Morris University of Pennsylvania emerged victorious.

 Friday night’s dinner opened with keynote speaker, Brenda Wagner, an HR executive, who’s has found success in her career path at IBM. Wagner detailed her path to success in HR management and started off the conference with inspirational words of wisdom for the participants. Throughout the following day, games were alternated with several opportunities to utilize SHRM’s networking resources, such as dinners, keynote speakers, and a case study competition. Management consulting firm, Augur, Inc., was also available during the conference to evaluate each student’s individual Predictive Index (PI), a highly regarded form of personality testing.

The conference closed with an awards banquet and performance by an HR comedy troupe. The conference proved to be a true mélange of both learning and enjoyment for all participants.