>> Shareeka [phonetic] Shaw: My name is Shareeka
Shaw, and I am currently the Assistant Director
for Workforce Management at the U.S.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency.
At ICE we're responsible for the
detention and removal of illegal aliens,
domestic criminal activity,
cybercrimes and things of that nature.
I currently support the Chief Financial
Officer's organization, the CFO,
and there I am responsible for the
hiring, the performance management
and training of over 500 employees.
I wish I could say that my job
was more proactive than reactive.
There are some cyclical activities
that happen on a yearly basis.
One of the things that we're working
on right now is performance management,
so managing employees' performance objective
and standards and measuring them against them.
So right now we're looking at employees and
their performance for FY12 so the fiscal year
that ended November -- I'm sorry, September
30th, 2012 and just reviewing performance
and issuing performance awards
and that type of thing,
so that's something that happens every year.
Something else that goes into our -- my job on
a daily basis is the training of our employees.
We do have mandatory training
that is required as an employee
of the Department of Homeland Security.
However within the CFO space, we
do have some training that we would
like our employees to participate in.
That includes project management,
financial management
and there's also what we call the Certified
Financial Government Manager, with is the CGFM,
Certified Government Financial
Manager certification program
that we actually train our employees to sit
so that they can become Certified
Government Financial Managers,
so we participate in that training as well.
Additionally, hiring; we
facilitate all of the hiring.
Most of our employees are located here in
Washington, D.C. in our headquarters offices.
However, we have two field offices, one
in Dallas, Texas as well as Burlington,
Vermont that primarily handle a lot of our daily
financial processing, so invoicing, payments,
accounts receivable, accounts
payables and things like that.
The typical hours I would say are
between 9:00 and 5:30, but just depending
on what we're doing, especially
right now as we look
to reengineer the performance
management process.
We've been putting in some
additional hours here and there,
so I would say the average
day is probably more like 9:00
to 6:00, with occasional late evenings.
[Silence] I like that I can, especially from
a hiring perspective, when I first started
with the agency I was the recruiter for what
was called then the Federal [inaudible] Intern
Program where we would go to different colleges
and universities, including the University
of Maryland, to recruit entry-level
undergraduate and graduate students.
And I think one of the most rewarding parts
of my job is to actually see those students
that I recruited three years ago now into
different positions as their careers begin
to grow and flourish and kind of
see what they're able to achieve.
So the fact that I'm able to either help people
into a job, get them training to help them move
up in their job or kind of help
through any human relation type
of issues is very rewarding for me.
Hardest part, I would say
sometimes prioritization.
Everything is, or appears to be, urgent, so
really just trying to find those small wins
that we can achieve on a daily basis in
order to kind of keep the momentum going
in the office is really difficult at times.
And then also from a resourcing perspective.
I mean, everyone knows that the government
is really under some tight fiscal constraints
at this point and so as we have people attrit
we are not able to hire right behind people
and so resources are getting scarce, and so
that may require us to do a little bit more
than we were doing in the past or stay
longer to achieve the same results,
so that has been somewhat of a
challenge this -- in this recent year.
[Silence] I would say to look for opportunities
to take classes on learning and development
and to be quite honest, there weren't many,
so to me I always look for either conferences
or workshops that were outside of the
classroom that could help me hone those skills
or learn more about the training
and development space.
A lot of those things are not things that you
just find, but you have to either research
on the Internet, talk to your professors
about your interests and kind of, you know,
pick their brain on things that you
should do to actually get ahead.
I would also say read a few books.
There are a lot of leadership and
development books out there that can kind
of give you an insight or perspective
on the world of learning and development
and then finally take your career
search into your own hands.
While the career center is here, it's
a kind of aid in that job search.
I think it's imperative for students to
understand that it's their obligation
to make sure that their resume is, you
know, in order and actually come in to meet
with a career advisor to
explore various options.
[Silence] Well, I started my undergraduate
education at Howard University in Washington,
D.C. where I majored in Business
with a concentration in Marketing,
quickly came to realize that those jobs
generally went to people with an MBA.
However, I did secure a position
with JP Morgan Chase upon graduation,
but I went into their audit department, so not
really related to my undergraduate degree at all
but audit, internal audit anyway, was
at least something that I could learn.
It was a teachable skill, so went on to
join the bank in a rotational program.
That rotational program took me
three years of a career at JP Morgan
where I pretty much was a
business and financial analyst.
After about three years I decided to apply
for the business school here at Smith
at the University of Maryland, found a
new interest in the human resource space,
organizational development
and learning and development,
so after that interest arose I actually
interned with GE for a semester just
to solidify my interest in human capital
and human resources, so I started looking
for federal employment at the recommendation of
a mentor and the only federal positions I found,
especially as a student, were
those that I already had experience
in which was a financial analyst, but
one of the positions was with ICE.
They were looking for a financial analyst,
but when I went in for the interview they
saw my interest in human capital as well
as my internship with GE and told me that they
also had a workforce management type of position
that would be available and asked if I would
be interested to interview for that position
that same day and I started with the
federal government in February of 2009
as a Student Career Intern Program intern
and upon graduation I was converted
to a full-time employee, and
I've been there ever since.
[Silence] I would say study hard.
Get good grades because we do ask.
Employers are interested in
students who not only get good grades
but also can balance academia
with extracurricular activities.
I would say use your resources albeit your
family, your neighbors, the career center
and the like and then finally just be
yourself on an interview because a lot
of times students answer questions the
way they think employers want to --
want the questions answered, but it's
really more about, you know, the skill set
and the connection and fit of a
position, so just be yourself.
[ Silence ]