UW College of Business Students Earn Second Place at Rocky Mountain HR Case Competition

After a week of analyzing a human resources (HR) case study on social media use in the hiring process, a University of Wyoming student team -- consisting of UW’s student chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management leadership -- took second place over eight teams from six other institutions at the sixth Annual Rocky Mountain HR Case Competition.

The Rocky Mountain HR Case Competition -- hosted by Colorado State University’s (CSU) College of Business Saturday, March 7, in Fort Collins, Colo. -- challenges undergraduate students to apply classroom knowledge to decisions HR professionals make every day. This year’s case examined how organizations should navigate reviewing job applicants’ social media profiles, an issue at the intersection of technology, ethics and employment law.

The competition brought together 10 teams from six institutions: CSU, UW, Brigham Young University, the University of Northern Colorado, Metropolitan State University of Denver and the University of North Texas.

Teams had one week ahead of the competition to analyze an HR case study centered on social media use in the hiring process. During the competition, teams delivered 15-minute oral presentations to a panel of HR professionals and fielded an additional 15 minutes of questions.

UW’s team members were:

-- Ella Cluff, of Hoover, Ala.

-- Elizabeth Hernandez, of Scottsbluff, Neb.

-- Richard Tetteh-Buckson, of Accra, Ghana.

The team was advised by Nicolina Taylor and Min Yu, both assistant instructional professors at UW.

“Second place at a competition this competitive is something to be very proud of. We love when we can participate in case competitions that bridge the classroom and the workplace, and these students represented UW exceptionally well,” Yu says.

Judges included HR professionals from Fort Collins, Columbine Health Systems, Sashco, North Range Behavioral Health, Ireland Stapleton, Yoder Family of Companies, MINES and Associates, HR Insight Consulting, Public Sector Workforce and Pay Advisory, and CSU.

The competition was sponsored by the CSU College of Business, Fort Collins, HRx Services, Employer’s Council, the Colorado Society for Human Resource Management and Northern Water.