SHPE - Winter 2008 - (Page 8) BROWSER P&G’s Regional Plan Creates Win-Win Solution When the SHPE Conference was moved to the fall, Procter & Gamble, a longtime member of the Industrial PartnerSHPE Council, implemented a strategy to support regional and local chapter activities and broaden its access to SHPE’s talent. “P&G recognizes that it’s becoming a very competitive market out there,” said Vince Cordova, a section head with P&G and the program coordinator. “By August or September, the good candidates are already being picked up, which means recruiting activities need to start in the April/May time period.” As a result, P&G assigned one manager to each of the Society’s seven regions. Along with other supporting managers, these liaisons coordinate P&G’s involvement in regional events, such as the Regional Leadership Development Tapping the Source for Quality Interns When his company was looking for qualified interns last summer, Pablo De Paulis turned to SHPE for candidates. A system engineer and project manager with Dialogic Research Inc., he joined the Society in December 2005. However, it wasn’t until he attended NTCC 2006 in Orlando that he fully appreciated SHPE’s value to his company. “I have a commitment to helping other Latinos gain a stronger foot in technology, where we are underrepresented,” De Paulis said. “Through its members and powerful networking, SHPE is the perfect conduit, and using OneSHPE I can reach more Hispanics than would otherwise be possible for me.” De Paulis advertised the summer internship opportunities via OneSHPE, and among the eight interns Dialogic hired was Eric Del Valle, a computer science senior and SHPE chapter secretary/webmaster at Virginia Tech. As part of the Host Software team, Del Valle was assigned to make much needed infrastructure improvements, laying the foundation for automation in regression testing for a large test suite – a company first. As a result of his work, the team is currently using this automated regression to speed up subsystem testing and increase the quality of deliverables. “On the technical side, it was a learning experience every single day,” Del Valle Conferences in the spring, as well as local chapter activities throughout the year. P&G’s support has included providing funding, assigning personnel to conduct workshops or keynote speeches, organizing company information sessions or tours and supplying products. So far, Cordova noted that the efforts have met with outstanding success, quadrupling the number of qualified interns applying to P&G. “It’s not just about recruiting or developing those relationships,” Cordova continued, “but it’s making the pipe bigger. SHPE is trying to recruit more members, and it does so by showing that it’s a successful organization that can help them find jobs. It’s a win-win situation that develops when people better understand what the company is all about. We want good candidates, but we also have to develop the pipeline. We will only be successful if SHPE and other organizations are successful.” For more information contact Vince Cordova at cordova.vr@pg.com. I All Aboard for E-Week By Allan Luis Morales, National Undergraduate Representative SHPE was valuable in helping Pablo De Paulis (right) recruit Eric Del Valle for an internship at Dialogic. explained. “When it came to personal development, I learned how to talk to managers, dress up every day and go to these meetings. At Dialogic, they treat interns like every other employee, not as college students. We were involved in significant projects that actually made an impact as opposed to doing busy work.” De Paulis noted that management was very impressed with Eric’s strong desire to finish his work and make meaningful contributions to the company. They were also impressed by his good communication and interpersonal skills. “Through his involvement in his SHPE student chapter,” De Paulis said, “Eric is honing these very important soft skills which are often overlooked by folks in technical careers.” I During National Engineers Week (E-Week), February 17-23, 2008, professionals and college students inspire K-12 students to study mathematics and science and become future engineers. SHPE strongly encourages all chapters to participate in this effort by participating in their favorite outreach activities. These can include reading “Ay Mija” or “Ay Mijo! Why do you want to be an engineer?” to middle school students; providing middle and high school students with a university lab tour or engineering exposition; or challenging high school students with a bridge building competition. Participating in E-Week adds 200 points toward the National Point System. Also, such events are eligible for Advancing Careers in Engineering (ACE) funding for the next school year. (ACE proposals are due April 15, 2008.) Create a new program or visit eweek.org for more suggestions. Please submit your events to VNUR Jorge Ortiz at Jorge.Ortiz@shpe.org. I SHPE R Winter 2008 8 http://eweek.org
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.