Curious about what it’s like to work in HR? Parker Dewey employer partner Seva Reilly, Marketing and Internship Coordinator at Sipley the Best, shares how an HR Micro-Internship can help students explore the field and gain valuable skills.

During fall 2023, Sipley the Best hired three Parker Dewey Micro-Interns. Our Micro-Interns gained experience inside our company, researching small businesses in our area; posting jobs and screening candidates for our clients’ openings; and even helping job seekers polish their resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn portfolios. 

You may associate HR with being in trouble: “Don’t get written up by HR!” Or, they’re the folks you talk to when signing new hire paperwork or quitting a job. But if you only see HR when you enter and exit the company, you’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg. 

Human resource management is more than hiring and firing. Humans are the lifeforce of a company—they drive action, innovation, change, and collaboration. Each person’s past experiences and skills are irreplaceable, and managing people well means providing roles, duties, the social environment, training, and other resources they need to thrive. 

That sounds nice on paper, but what does it look like in practice for us as HR professionals? 

Working in the HR field means:

• Helping a job seeker with their resume and professional interview skills.
• Coaching a career changer on the importance of learning new skills and gaining professional experiences, not just getting a paper degree. 
• Creating a remote or hybrid option for a qualified employee with a disability. 
• Creating mentorship programs to foster relationships and social learning for new hires. 
• Supporting employees through mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring to ensure humans and their needs aren’t lost in the changes. 
• Celebrating with employees on their birthdays, their graduation, their marriages, the birth of their children, and mourning with them through death. 

Dawn speaks at a job fair with a candidate at our Sipley the Best booth, sharing advice for her resume and her job search. This is a snapshot of us doing what we love in the community: helping people find jobs!

Yes, HR is hiring and firing, but it’s also everything that happens in between. Participating in an HR Micro-Internship through Parker Dewey provides Career Launchers with valuable experience, skills, and connections that can help jumpstart your career in human resources.

Sipley the Best works in all areas of HR, supporting clients as they create and post jobs; source, screen, and interview top candidates; make job offers; and use personality profiling to build powerful teams. Learn more about Sipley the Best here.