Human Resources HR and SHRM resources for WGU students

Be prepared for a successful career in human resources.

Working with other people, helping resolve conflicts, building teams, and finding new employees perfect for your organization. Human resources is an exciting and rewarding career that combines technical know-how with crucial people skills to help you find success. When pursuing a career in HR, there are many elements that can help you be more successful. From the specific skills you'll obtain as you earn a degree, to the networking opportunities that can help you stay up-to-date on techniques and make important connections, WGU aims to give you all the things you need to pursue a career in HR.

What is HR?

Before you decide to pursue a career in HR, it's important to learn as much as you can about it. Learn about the job description, salary options, educational requirements, and more for an HR career.

HR roles.

There are many different HR roles within an organization. Learn about the different positions you can pursue and which one is likely the best fit for your personality and career goals.

HR certifications.

For many people pursuing a career in HR, industry certifications can be extremely beneficial. Learn about the certification options, and which one can best help your career.

Location and industry.

Every organization around the world likely has HR professionals. So it's important to consider the industry and location of a job. Discover how location and industry play a vital role in HR jobs.

WGU SHRM virtual student chapter.

Get involved with SHRM.

WGU's SHRM virtual student chapter is for students interested in expanding their HR opportunities.

Join the chapter

HR and your career development.

Business

Bridging the gap: job offers and negotiation.

Are you being paid what you are worth? Maybe it's time to become a better negotiator.

How do we manage our reaction to change?

We must start small and begin to take these things one day at a time.

Understanding the Americans with Disabilities Act.

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, a celebration of the law passed 30 years ago.

So you want to work in HR?

Three picks for resources to help you accomplish your HR professional goals.

Business as a force for good.

An idea whose time has come.

Building your personal brand.

A few questions for you to ponder that I’ve found helpful while building out my own personal brand.

It really is about who you know.

The truth is that networking is vitally important to your career success.

Hyper-focusing your HR tech stack.

Perhaps your all-in-one HR tech stack really should be several different tools for several different purposes.

Employment engagement during COVID-19.

Is it appropriate to talk about employee engagement when so much has changed? The answer is yes.

2021 Events:

January 15, 2021 Beth Conlin, Sr. Program Manager—Military Spouse Programs at Amazon "Importance of Employee Support Programs for Military Spouses"

February 12, 2021 Dr. Brian Ward, Course Lead—HR Evaluation, WGU "The Impact of Culture on Hiring"

March 17, 2021 Dr. Becky Melton, Course Instructor, WGU "ADA in the Workplace: Using your Curiosity and Logic to your Advantage"

March 27, 2021. "Virtual Community Service Day: Live Event with Warrior Rising"

April 7th, 2021. Dr. R Austin Arenz, "The Intersection of HR and Healthcare"

May 14, 2021, Jason Thompson, VP of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, WGU "Building Successful Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Programs"

May 17, 2021, 12–1 pm MST. Dr. Josh Plaskoff, Senior Social Emotional Learning Analyst, WGU "SEL for Personal and Professional Development"

June 11, 2021, 12–1 pm MST. Demetrius Norman, Academic Specialist, SHRM "Preparing for the SHRM CP Exam!"

June 14, 2021, 2–3 pm MST. Dr. Nicole Whitehead, CHRO, Joliet Junior College "A Day in the Life of a Chief Human Resources Officer"

June 24, 2021, 10 am–2 pm MST. “WGU Virtual Business Career Fair”

2020 Events:

January 6: Jeff Baird, Speaker, Trainer, Manager of Data and Integration Services at doTERRA, IT Career Hacking, & Like Abilities presents "Using Body Language to Create Influence and Trust"

January 24: WGU Program Mentors Teresa Cross, Karen Toney Brown, April Kinchen, Donnis McPhaul, and Dolores Grady, present "Everything You Wanted to Know About HR Functions…Condensed!"

February 5: Hilary Simon, Senior Social & Emotional Learning Analyst at WGU presents an "SEL Overview"

February 12: WGU Program Architect Racheal Killian presents "SEL-Self-Awareness and Self-Management"

February 19: Joseph Cervantes, WGU SEL Specialist, presents "SEL - Interpersonal Communication, Executive Function, and Social Awareness"

March 7: Dr. Ashley Dugger of the WGU SHRM Chapter's Community Service Day presents Community Volunteer Projects for the Chapter! See below for more.

March 11: WGU Program Mentor April Kinchen presents "HR Department of 1"

April 29: Hal Halladay presents "Beyond the Rut of Success: The Breakthrough Mindset"

May 20: Nicole Whitehead presents "What Difference Does Difference Make: The Impact of Diversity"

June 2: Mark Coldren presents "Succession Planning and Talent Pipeline"

June 3: Demetrius Norman presents "Importance of the SHRM-CP Certification and How to Prepare for the Exam"

July 10: Kirk Daines presents "A Day in the Life of an HR Business Partner"

July 31: Celeste Morgan and Chapter President present "Book Club Review and Discussion" on the book "Switchers: How Smart Professionals Change Careers and Seize Success" by Dawn Graham

August 3: Kevin Cummings presents "Conflict 101"

September 14: Patricia Morgan presents "Intergenerational Recruiting"

October 12: Bruce Stetar presents "SHRM Convos and Coffee: Workplace Culture"

November 3: Jennifer Rhodes and Michael Kimball-Bryant present "Career Services at WGU"

November 5: Ashley Dugger presents “Open Chapter Meeting for all Members”

Community Service Day, March 2020

Take a peek at some of the projects our College of Business students and employees participated with during the first-ever, chapter-hosted community service day in March 2020!

SHRM 2019 Conference Panel Conversations

SHRM 2019 Virtual Chapter Launch

Reinventing Yourself by Furthering Your Education

Creating a Safe and Inclusive Workplace

Medical Marijuana in the Workplace

Breaking Down Mental Health Stigmas

WGU SHRM Chapter Articles

Business

HR's part in staying competitive in a pandemic.

Human resource professionals are on the front line of this pandemic to understand flexible work arrangements.

Balancing it all during the coronavirus pandemic.

How organizations can support operations and employees to help maintain productivity.

How to strengthen your resilience in difficult times.

See what HR professionals can do to improve their emotional resilience in difficult times avoid professional burnout.

Mental health and stress management.

Discover how you can improve your mental health and manage your stress during the overwhelming time of COVID-19.

Benefits of getting involved with professional associations.

Discover why professional associations can be a great option for students pursuing higher education.

The importance of ongoing, regular professional development.

Discover why ongoing professional development is key for your employees to stay engaged.

Alumni Resources

Alumni Library

What is it? Once students graduate, access to the active student library ends and in its place is the Alumni Library. Due to vendor licensing restrictions it does not have the same content as the active student library, but still offers a range of amazing resources including the following:

EBSCO Academic Search Alumni Edition . With a broad academic scope, this database provides full text as well as indexing and abstracts for thousands of peer-reviewed journals and general periodicals.

ProQuest Ebook Central Academic Complete . 150,000+ ebooks hand selected for quality over quantity, covering a wide range of topics. Available for download and online reading.

Hoovers Company Profiles . Company profiles of 40,000 global public and non-public companies including financials, competitors, officers, and more.

Librarian Services. Access to 24/7 chat, email, and phone support. The chat is from a 3rd party service, but the email and phone support is with the WGU Librarians.

How to access it? To access the alumni library, visit https://www.wgu.edu/alumni.html. Hover over the “Resources” tab at the top of the page, then click on “Visit the Alumni Library.” Enter your WGU student credentials to access the library.

Skillsoft

What is it? Skillsoft is a web-based, e-learning portal that allows alumni to access a range of training resources (books, courses, and videos on business, IT, well-being, certifications, production & collaboration, and digital skills) whenever and wherever you have the need and time. You can use Skillsoft to:

Access a variety of instructional and assessment learning assets from the Skillsoft catalog and custom catalogs
Create and follow training plans created by you and your manager
View and report on your progress and test scores

How to access it? Access Skillsoft here: https://lrps.wgu.edu/provision/26296207.

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com)

What is it? WGU provides free access to LinkedIn Learning, an online educational platform with 5,000+ courses to help discover and develop business, technology-related, and creative skills through expert-led course videos, for every graduate. LinkedIn Learning offers on-demand courses to help individuals prepare for professional certification exams and earn continuing education units (CEUs). Learn more here: https://learning.linkedin.com/certification-and-continuing-education-programs.

How to access it? To access LinkedIn Learning using your WGU credentials, visit https://www.wgu.edu/alumni.html. Hover over the “Resources” tab at the top of the page, then click on “continuing education opportunities.” From this page, scroll down to the LinkedIn Learning link. You will then be directed to a page where you can enter your WGU student credentials to access your free subscription.

Pluralsight

What it is? WGU has partnered with Pluralsight to offer those who have graduated from WGU in the last three years (NOTE: We are currently working to open this up to all graduates, regardless of when they graduated.) free access to its technology skills platform that provides web development, IT certification and on-demand training. Recent graduates will find expert-authored online courses on software development, IT ops, data science, and much more! Pluralsight helps you prepare for industry certifications, including PMP®, CompTIA, and many more. To support your path to certification, we provide curated certification paths, Kaplan certification practice exams, and certificates of completion that can be used for certain continuing education credits. Learn more here: https://help.pluralsight.com/help/certifications.

How to access it? Graduates can only access Pluralsight for free if they have graduated within the last three years. (NOTE: We are currently working to open this up to all graduates, regardless of when they graduated.) To access Pluralsight using your WGU credentials, visit https://www.wgu.edu/alumni.html. Hover over the “Resources” tab at the top of the page, then click on “continuing education opportunities.” From this page, scroll down to the Pluralsight link. You will then be directed to a page where you can enter your WGU student credentials to access your free, limited subscription.

Wiley CPAexcel

Offers free access, for all MACC grads, to Wiley’s CPAexcel prep resources. Learn more and purchase here: https://www.efficientlearning.com/partner/wgu/wgu-cpa/.

CPA Exam Updates and Information Related to COVID-19

https://www.efficientlearning.com/cpa/coronavirus-updates/.

https://www.efficientlearning.com/coronavirus-updates/#pmp.

Wiley PMP

Offers $200 off Sybex’s PMP Exam Review materials to WGU graduates. Learn more and purchase here: https://www.efficientlearning.com/partner/wgupmp/wgu-pmp/.

Wiley SIE

Offers $50 off Wiley Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) Exam Review to WGU graduates. Learn more and purchase here: https://www.efficientlearning.com/partner/wgufinra/wgufinra-finra/.

MindEdge

What is it? WGU partners with MindEdge to provide free online business training for alumni. Simply use the discount code wgualumni at check-out to get access to the courses for free.

How to access it? Browse courses here: https://wgualumni.mindedgeonline.com/partner/courses/.

BenefitHub

What it is? A WGU alumni exclusive benefit. Whether you want to travel the world, attend a concert, or pamper yourself to a day at the spa, BenefitHub has these types of discounts and more! Check out this discount marketplace for WGU alumni.

How to access it? https://wgualumni.benefithub.com/

Handshake

What is it? WGU’s Career & Professional Development team operates Handshake - a modern career development platform used nationally by top universities and employers. 

How to access it? https://wgu.joinhandshake.com/login