I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and moved to United States in April of 1999 and was given a chance to pursue any career I wanted. I chose Psychology. As I picked up a business minor during my undergraduate work, I quickly drew parallels between business and it’s most important driver – people. I quickly decided to dedicate my studies and career to the field of Industrial/Organizational Psychology.
I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio and worked in Human Resources as an internal recruiter. I decided to continue my education and moved to Chicago to pursue my Master of Arts in I/O Psychology at The Chicago School on a part-time basis while working as an Employment Specialist in a consulting company.
Later I transitioned into being a full-time student while acquiring industry experience through internships. In the beginning of my second year in the masters program, I was working at two internship sites simultaneously: Metrus Group and Rush University Medical Center. I chose this internship with Metrus Group to supplement my future degree from a professional school with more academic research. I worked directly with the CEO, Dr. Schiemann, and contributed research findings on talent development, management, talent acquisition, employer branding, performance measurement, employee engagement and strategic alignment which gave me an opportunity to learn a great deal on current industry issues. My research and pieces of writing have been published in Dr. Schiemann’s latest book titled Reinventing Talent Management.
My internship with Rush University Medical Center provided me with more applied experience. My role entailed statistical analysis of results from the patient and employee surveys as well as participation in new survey design decisions. I am especially interested in statistical analysis and survey development. I enjoy spending hours in SPSS or Access, analyzing data and producing visual graphs and charts in Excel that show clear and concise results to the bottom line.
In addition to surveys and measurement, my interests lie in Organizational Development. I eagerly searched for opportunities to get hands on practice in training and development during my experience in recruitment. During my full-time employment in Human Resources at NCR, I piloted a new departmental model: partnership with NCR employees in India. I trained the team in India on our process, measures and policy. In turn, I trained my team in the United States on cultural differences and challenges they are likely to encounter in working with employees in India as they were in the process on joining the partnership. At The Revere Group, I developed a training program for the Talent Acquisition team on the employer branding strategy. I worked with the Human Resources and Marketing directors to develop proper communications for the team that recruits potential new hires.
Now I work part-time with United Stationers doing training and Organizational Development work. I am also working on two research projects with Rush University Medical Center: validating a behavior-based interview protocol and validating a coding tool for articles on strategic human resource management.