Chelsa Lim
Y3 Business, MNO and Finance
Co-President
What is/was your internship role?
I was a Recruitment and Employer Branding Intern in Henkel during my summer break.
The team is part of a bigger human resource team in the APAC region. I assisted my mentor on brainstorming for SEA employer branding efforts as well as increasing the efficiency and accuracy for the APAC recruitment team.
My role involved implementing end to end recruitment process improvements for Henkel’s APAC Recruitment project to improve the team’s time to hire effectively. I was fortunate to also have the opportunity to launch a personal project of mine, “Day in the life” series for the SEA region focusing on Singapore interns.
Share with us a brief background of your internship company.
Henkel is a German chemical and consumer goods MNC that operates worldwide with leading innovations, brands and technologies in three business areas: Adhesive Technologies, Beauty Care and Laundry & Home Care.
What was your best takeaway/insight(s) from this internship?
My biggest takeaways for this internship are the amount of autonomy and opportunities I was presented and trusted with.
This gave me a wider perspective on how to properly implement improvements that value adds to the team and the opportunity to have an in depth conversation on challenges that they face. I would then better know how certain implementations will concretely add value to the various HR leaders involved in the projects. Hence, it was very meaningful to me.
“Always ask questions and know your whys” is a reminder that was constantly mentioned to me during the phase of my internship by my mentor. It is not only comforting but serves as a good reminder even when in daily lives. When you fail, when you are tired, when you are disheartened, if you are clear of the“why” behind the actions you are taking, I believe you will be able to get back up and try again.
What was/were your biggest challenge(s) faced and how did you overcome it/them?
The biggest challenge that I faced was the switching of hats. At times, I played the hat of a marketer when working on my employer branding projects. At times, I played the hat of a recruiter when liaising with recruiters to work on plans to help improve their recruitment plans.
Firstly, I learned to like the challenge. In fact I aimed to challenge the challenge by turning it into an enjoyable process for myself.
Then taking in the advice from my mentor, I started questioning myself about the “whys” and realised that this is a process. Instead of thinking of them as a separate process, I looked at them all as part of a candidate journey and they work hand in hand towards the same goal.
This helped me to appreciate the different functions and allowed me to easily switch hats when necessary.
What would you do differently if you could go back to the start of the internship?
I want to be less shy and take the first step to liaise with different HR leaders from other departments to understand more about what they are doing and the reason why they are doing what they are doing.
This would allow me to gain more perspective about HR in the workplace and learn more about the various functions that are not just limited to my current one.
How has the internship value-added your prospective career in HR?
This role has not only expanded to one but two functions in Human Resource hence it definitely allowed me to witness how different HR functions can come hand in hand to meet the ultimate goal of making the workplace a happy, conducive and productive one for all. I do not regret my choice and would be happy to live it again anytime.