Callie and Deanna discuss their HR career journeys and pass along what they've learned thus far about following your gut and upping your networking game.
Callie and Deanna discuss their HR career journeys and pass along what they've learned thus far about following your gut and upping your networking game.
Callie Zipple:
Hi everybody, my name's Callie.
Deanna:
And I'm Deanna, and this is Honest HR, a podcast from SHRM, where we get real with HR professionals.
Callie Zipple:
We're looking to create a safe space for people to passionately share their HR stories and insights.
Deanna:
And because this is a safe space, and because we are passionate, we understand our approach, our topics, and our stories aren't for everyone.
Callie Zipple:
Come if you're interested. Stay if you like what we're throwing down, we like you and appreciate you either way.
Deanna:
All right, let's get into this week's topic.
Callie Zipple:
Cool beans. This week, since it's our first podcast, Deanna and I want to take a second to introduce ourselves and go through our path to SHRM, our path through HR, our path through SHRM. And just, like I said, introduce you to who you're going to be talking to for the foreseeable future on Honest HR. I'm going to start out. Again, my name is Callie. Last name is Zipple. I am a field service director for the Society for Human Resource Management, also known hopefully to all of you by SHRM.
I studied business with a HR and leadership focus at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin. It's a small college, but mighty. We did not have an HR degree. Like I said, I studied business, but did get involved in SHRM, which led me to the HR and leadership focus that I chose. I will be honest with you, and if you are a young professional or a student, please know that a lot of what you learn in school, you don't necessarily use in your professional job or your real life grown up job. You use a lot of it and you want to use what you've learned, but most of what you'll learn comes in the job. I'm speaking from personal experience on that.
My first job out of school was recruiting. I started at a third party staffing firm in Appleton Wisconsin called, "Landmark Staffing." And I found that although recruiting was a really great way to get into HR, I struggled with the third party aspect, and that was just a personal thing for me. I wanted to be able to sell the mission and vision and values of a company. And I found it difficult in the role that I was in.
I started looking after about a year and a half for a in house recruiting role or HR generalist role. And I was fortunate enough to get a HR generalist job in a manufacturing company in Bonduel, Wisconsin, which is a small town near Green Bay, and manufacturing was awesome for me. I loved it. It felt like such a family, and I still did a lot of recruiting, but was able to sell that mission, vision, and also get involved in some additional HR things.
For those of you that are considering going into manufacturing, but you're scared of the environment, don't be. It's exactly what you make it. I learned to weld. I learned to make a table, and it was just a really cool experience for me and probably one of my favorite jobs in the HR practitioner space that I've had.
After that job, I had a personal life change, which required me to relocate. I took a similar role in a different industry and really recognized that the professional industries are much slower than the manufacturing industries. There's just a lot more going on in the manufacturing space. And I felt like in this job, this second HR generalist job that I got in Milwaukee for a travel management company was just a little bit slow.
I didn't spend too much time in that role and started looking for a larger corporate experience, or a larger corporate environment to practice HR in. And I was fortunate enough to get a call from Zebra Technologies, which is in Illinois, Lincolnshire. And I actually went from an HR generalist role to what they called a senior HR coordinator role. Technically I took a step back in my career to get into the environment that I was looking for to propel me in my career and propel me forward.
Again, if you take one thing away from my introduction today, don't be afraid of taking that step back because it did, like I said, get me into an environment that was corporate structure. It was a very large global organization, but from a title perspective, I did take that step back. And while I was at Zebra, I actually worked through three positions in two years. I took from that senior HR coordinator role, I actually took on a specialist role. I did total rewards. I did both compensation and benefits in that role. And then due to some restructuring, as a result of a very, very large acquisition, I was asked to move back to the team that I was on initially to supervise them. You can imagine the dynamic there of working with these individuals and then being asked to supervise them. I learned a lot in that transition, and really, really appreciated my time at Zebra.
I started looking for that next step in my career. I had the supervisory experience. I was looking more for the HR supervisor, HR manager type role, and actually got the job at Stats, LLC, which is a sports, data, and technology company, in downtown Chicago. I gave my notice to Zebra, and in an effort to be honest today, right, it's Honest HR, my notice experience at Zebra did not go as planned. I was told that I was making a big mistake and that I was underqualified for the role that I was going to be doing. And I was not treated very well as a result of that decision.
And I started questioning whether or not I was qualified or would fail. And I will tell you that that is not anything I will ever do again. That was one of the low points in my career, and now I can say, I went over to Stats. I successfully transitioned into an HR manager role, did some great things for a year, but most importantly, I'm now at SHRM. I am a field service director for an organization that I've been volunteering for for 10 years and have a real, real passion for. Although I had that experience where I was second guessing myself and was feeling a little bit down about my abilities and things like that, it's all come full circle for me to be working for just an awesome organization that's doing awesome things. We're really propelling the HR space forward with Johnny at our helm. And I'm just so excited to be working for an organization that appreciates its employees, appreciates what HR is doing in the business space, and I'm just thrilled to be here.
With that, I will turn it over to Deanna and let her tell you a little bit about her story and her introduction.
Deanna:
Thank you, Callie. That was quite the story you told. And I know you've been here for quite some time now. We're happy that you're at SHRM with us. My story is a little different. Before I start off, I am the HR specialist on the HR team. I've been at SHRM for close to five years now, and I didn't initially start on the HR team, but I'll get into that a little bit later. I graduated with an undergrad from the University of Notre Dame with a BA in Psychology. Like Callie, there was no HR field that we could study so psychology was my go to. And shockingly, I used that a lot with the folks that we work with at SHRM.
No joke, a week after graduation, I flew to DC to intern at the family liaison office at the state department. I was there for five months, and I learned a lot. I made a lot of connections, but then within those five months I realized, government life wasn't really for me. One of the connections that I made was with an HR manager, who worked at a government contracting company in the Crystal City area, right outside of DC. And he told me about a position for an HR coordinator job at his company. And to be honest, and since this is an honest podcast, I wasn't super thrilled about going into the HR field. But to be honest, my internship was closing very quickly and I needed to get a job, or I was flying back to Indiana to hang with my parents. Decided not to go that route and took the job.
I worked as an HR coordinator, really just learning all the basics of HR. I was there for about two and a half years. And I got to learn about data entry, learned a little bit about compensation and benefits, onboarding, terminations, compliance. I really got to touch a lot of things in that role.
When that company actually got bought out and they let us all know that there's a chance that we could all be let go. With the same connection that I had made prior, he had another job at that point. And he let me know that there was an education coordinator position that was opening up at SHRM. And this is really how a conversation between him and I went, he was like, "I work at SHRM." And I said, "What's a SHRM?" I had absolutely no idea what SHRM was, but he was like, "If you want to continue with your HR career, while this position isn't technically what you may want right now, you're getting your foot in the door at SHRM, and trust me, it's going to be worth it."
I ended up taking the education job and I worked on all things from the education products that we sell, and all the seminars and programs, and I really learned about the business of SHRM from the outside. I think that was really helpful for me. I was considered the utility player on the team. I really just touched every project that I could get my hands on. A couple of years ago, about, let's see, three years ago, maybe, four years ago, I decided to get my master's in HR management at Georgetown. While I was still in the education coordinator job, I decided, this is probably a good next step for me. And I did that while I was working full time at SHRM. It was so much fun and I was so tired all the time, but in the end it was worth it.
After I completed my first semester at Georgetown, the HR generalist position opened up SHRM. And I did not think I was qualified for the job. That's one thing that I really upset about with myself that I was in school. I was trying to better myself and I still didn't think I was worth it. And my SHRM mentor that was on the education team with me, she said, "This type of opportunity doesn't come around often, especially at a place like SHRM. You'll regret it if you don't at least try." I ended up applying for the job, I got promoted. And from there, I just hit the ground running in all things, all the fun things like employee engagement, and all the not so fun things like employee relations.
I will say that I felt that while being in school, it did help me contribute more in the classroom, but also for SHRM and then the team. And that was a huge confident booster for me definitely.
This position also required that I got SHRM certified within the first year of employment in that position. In between fall and spring semesters, I studied and took the SHRM CP exam. And while I wouldn't recommend studying in that short amount of time, I did pass so that's good. I did graduate from Georgetown in December of 2016, feels just like yesterday. And since then, I've continued in the same role here at SHRM. There's been a slight title change, a little bit more responsibility here and there, which is great, but still this role really gives me the opportunity to be a jack of all trades, but still narrowing in on certain functions that I can grow in. But my main focuses continue to be employee engagement, employee relations, and just the overall employee experience. Yeah, that's pretty much my story.
Callie Zipple:
Awesome. Deanna, I found it interesting that both of us found our way into the HR space, even though we didn't go to school expecting to be there. And I've noticed in my opportunities to network with other HR professionals, that a lot of them say they fell into the HR profession. And frankly, that makes it sound like they were on the raw end of the deal. And what I say specifically when people ask me how I got into the HR space, is that I lucked into HR. I lucked into working with people. I lucked into helping with leadership and development opportunities within the organizations that I work in. And I think it's really important for us to just have a dialogue about how it's okay if you're not looking for HR and HR finds you. What do you suggest, I guess, for people who don't anticipate HR, but find themselves in it.
Deanna:
Yeah, I 100% agree with you. As we were both talking, yeah, our paths were not, "We're going to do HR." With a psychology degree, I was working in labs with families and I thought, I wanted to be a therapist. This was the path I was going to take, and things happen. And I will attribute my career now with the connections and the networking that I did when I was at the state department and that I continue to do, that I met people who worked in HR and have a passion for it. And I gave it a try and I've loved it since. I enjoy coming to work every day and making a difference in people's lives, personally and professionally. I'm thankful that I'm a part of SHRM and I choose HR every day.
Callie Zipple:
Yeah. It's funny because I started actually as a math major, which makes me actually sick to think about now. And I don't even know what I would've done with a math major, but that's neither here nor there. But something you just mentioned actually got me thinking, you networked your way into SHRM. And I got to say, I also networked my way into SHRM. For those of you that are in school or you're a young professional, I can't stress enough the importance of getting involved and networking with other people in this HR space. It really does work wonders. And there's a quote that I often say, "You're either networking or you're not working." And the fact that both Deanna and I networked our way into SHRM is proof that that is the case. Get involved, whether it's with your local SHRM chapter within your college or your professional chapter after graduation, but getting involved really, truly is the way to continue HR every day and love it.
Deanna:
I like that quote, Callie. I'm going to have to write that down.
Callie Zipple:
Yeah. Write it down. On our next episode, we're going to get real, actually with a guest, Sam Sanders. We're going to talk about our, why in HR and we didn't touch on that a ton today, but we will be with Sam and we're excited about that for our next episode. Come on back. Again, we appreciate you if you don't, but we really appreciate you if you do. We will see you again soon.
Deanna:
Cya.