Three MSU students participated in a ‘Jeopardy’-style competition in Austin, Texas, hosted by the regional Human Resources Games and Student Leadership Conference. The game consisted of five categories, all relating to human relation topics, with questions worth 100-1,000 points each. For each question the team answered incorrectly, the points of that question were deducted.
The MSU team, Truman Abbe, Sutton Holcomb and Amber Crausby, played against 15 other teams at the SHRM games and won against the University of Mississippi’s team in the semi-final round.
MSU racked up a total score of 41,600 points to beat the second place team, St. Louis University, who earned only 21,000 points.
Mississippi was among five states to participate. Matthew Stollak, an assistance professor of management, was the adviser of the teams who got MSU involved last year and encouraged the volunteering students this year.
The senior management majors have practiced once a week since the fall and crammed on the way to Austin to prepare for the competition.
By winning the regional contest, the team’s traveling expenses to the national games in Philadelphia in June are paid for. The winning team will receive a cash prize of $1,000 for each member.
“In Philadelphia, the three losing teams play one another for a wild card to the semi-finals,” Abbe explained.
“Amber and Sutton are really great. It was good to be on a team with them,” stated Abbe.
“These games help students prepare for the HR exam, much like a lawyer passes a bar exam,” Stollak said.
“It was a lot of fun. These games have given me contacts that I would not have had,” Abbe said about the benefits of participating, “it’s the best thing to do to take the HR exam.”
Stollak explained that the competition benefits students with a network of HR professions and MSU receives name recognition.
“Someone can make $7,000 more in salary with that certification,” Stollak said about the importance of the HR exam.
“This re-enforced everything that I learned in class,” Sutton explained about participating on the MSU team.
Students are encouraged by Stollak and this year’s team members to get involved next year. The estimated passing rate for the HR exam is approximately 50 percent. All participants for the games must be undergraduates.
Since the field of HR is broad, the participants had to study profusely for the competition to cover all topics that apply to the field.