GEORGIA COUNTY INTERNSHIP SPOTLIGHT

 

Jonah Isaza, an incoming Aerospace Engineering major at Georgia Tech, interned with the Cobb County Human Resources Department. A Cobb County native, Isaza’s major internship project was implementing a large-scale audit of county staffing and record-keeping policies.

 

Isaza brought a unique perspective to his internship, as his family worked for the county for around a decade. Still, his experience as an intern helped him develop a new perspective on county government operations, particularly in the diversity of county services, which he learned about during his audit.

 

Isaza developed the audit with the human resources department to review staff responsibilities across departments and analyze how these responsibilities are communicated and passed down through staff turnover. Isaza decided to audit five major departments and created and administered an original questionnaire to two separate staff members in each department.

 

From the interview process, Isaza collected and analyzed the data to produce findings and recommendations for the human resources department. His major findings include noting large variation in record-keeping policies, differing human resources staff ratios between departments, and a lack of department-specific handbooks. Isaza was able to share these findings with human resources department staff and make recommendations for future policies and procedures. Isaza said that he considers the completion of the audit and the preparation of actionable improvement plans is what he is most proud of from his experience.

 

Isaza also assisted with numerous smaller projects in addition to the main audit. Using the programming language Python, he created a countywide dashboard that generates visualizations of recruitment data across all departments, something that was previously impossible to achieve with the county’s employment software. Additionally, he was able to tour various county departments and connect with other county interns.

 

Through the internship, Isaza said that he developed his managerial and organization skills and knowledge. He appreciated a change of pace and perspective from his previous work experiences, which were more technical. Though he plans to major in aerospace engineering, Isaza enjoyed his work experience within county government operations and said he would consider a career in county government, especially since Cobb operates an airport.

 

To learn more about the GCIP, please visit our website at https://www.accg.org/caf_index.php.