I sat down with Morgan Nicholson who is the Benefits analyst in Queens University’s Human Resources Department and conducted a short informational interview.

1. Informational Interview
I did my informational interview with Morgan Nicholson who is the Benefits analyst in Queens
University’s Human Resources Department. She graduated from the human resources program at
St. Lawrence college in 2004 and has been at Queens University ever since. The biggest thing
that I took from the interview was how much she loves her job. In my experience, most
employees have both good and bad things to say about the company they work for. Morgan had
nothing but positive things to say about Queens and also her job in general.
My first question was “What made you choose a career in human resources?”. After high school
she attended St. Lawrence College and completed the human resources course. Morgan chose
that course because two members of her family worked in human resources, which made her
interested in the career.
We then discussed Queens policies on business communications. Morgan had limited
information because the type of communication depends of the department and she has only
worked in one department. She also told me that all communication is very formal, memos are
rarely used, email is the dominant form of communication, and the most important this is to
document everything.
I then asked her what she would you like to see changed. Morgan was on the testing and design
team when queens implemented a new PeopleSoft program at Queens University. It took the
team two years to map the entire human resource department, adapt the program to Queens
needs, and enter every employee into the system.
I then asked Morgan about her experiences while working at Queens University. Her favourite
experiences revolve around interacting with people and her involvement with the testing and
design team. When I asked her what her worst experience has been I was very shocked at the
answer. Morgan couldn’t come up with an answer at first; she then said that firing people and
giving bad news in general was her least favourite thing part of her job.
“If you could go back and change one thing, what would it be?” Was one of my final questions.
She responded by saying that she is awesome and would not change a thing. But if she had to,
Morgan said that she would have furthered her education and she would have liked to get more
experience by moving to other departments.
To conclude the interview I asked her what advice she would give to someone that wanted to
start a career in human resources. The best pieces of advice that she gave me were: work your
way up, know a little about everything, get your foot in the door early, and don’t settle.
At the last moment Morgan offered me her time and her experience because the man I was going
to interview was unable to meet with me. This really shows how much she enjoys helping people
and how perfect a career in human resources really was.