Actively Engaging Future SHRM Members

By: Rebecca Neilson, PHR, SHRM-CP

Reaching our college students and encouraging them to come to chapter meetings is important. They are our pipeline to future chapter members. Has your chapter actively engaged in encouraging students to come to your meetings? Here are few ideas to assist you with ways to reach college students.

1. When planning for next year’s budget, decide what the chapter will fund for college students. What are the events you will fund, how will identity the students, what are the requirements for meeting the scholarship requirements, how do the students apply, how do they find out about the scholarships, and how are they notified? Do you want to fund a certain amount of seats at a monthly luncheon, special chapter events, HR Southwest, or something else? Make sure you allow enough lead time for the information to get to the student chapter and allow them to respond. Do you want to recognize the recipients in your monthly newsletter or in some other fashion?

2. Jennifer Williams of the Lubbock chapter says they put all of their student members’ résumés online. They have been able to get all of their student members jobs by the time they graduated. This is a great way for students to learn and understand the importance of networking and being a part of the professional organization.

3. Do you host networking events and encourage student members to attend?

4. If your chapter is involved in community events, do you invite your college members to join you?

5. We all know making someone who is new feel welcome at a meeting is the first step towards getting them to return to your meetings and become a member. College students may feel even more uncomfortable about coming to a meeting. I encourage you to go out of your way to ensure they feel welcome. Have an active welcome program for both professional members and your student members.

6. We are fortunate to be hosting the student HR games in Houston for the 2017 Central Student Summit. If you have a student group interested in attending, reach out to the advisor of the group to see what kind of support they may need.

7. Act as an additional resource for student groups. Remind them of upcoming SHRM related events/scholarships or things that can supplement the information that they are getting. The more often they are reminded about events and opportunities, the more they will participate in them.

8. Please share any ideas you have with me and I will share them with the council. My email address is rneilson@uta.edu .

We are excited to have the SHRM Student Case Competition and Career Summit for the Central Region in Houston on March 10-11, 2017. The host chapter is HR Houston. They have done a fantastic job so far on filling 40 of the 99 volunteer slots. There are descriptions of what is required of each position. There are lots of different opportunities to volunteer.

If you are interested in volunteering for the 2017 Central Student Summit, here is the link to volunteer: SHRM Student Case Competition and Career Summit - Central.