Behind the Scenes at the Union: Jenny Lee, Wisconsin Union Human Resources
If you’ve ever wondered what working at the Wisconsin Union is like or are considering employment with us, some of the first team members you will interact with will be from our human resources department. This team is made up of 12 full-time staff who manage the Union’s application site and handle other responsibilities, including recruitment, onboarding and training. One of the many team members you may have the pleasure of meeting is Jenny Lee.
Jenny began working at the Wisconsin Union in 2019 as a graduate student. After graduating in 2021, she became a temporary employee before transitioning to a full time role in October of the same year. At the start of her full-time role, she focused on student employee onboarding before overseeing student employment and recruitment. Recently, her role expanded to also include recruitment for full-time positions, employee relations and workplace accommodations.
I recently met with Jenny to discuss her experience in human resources and employee recruitment at the Wisconsin Union. Read on to learn more about Jenny, her role and what being employed at the Wisconsin Union offers.
What attracted you to your role at the Wisconsin Union?
Being an international student, coming to Madison for the first time, I didn’t know much about Madison. I was looking for student jobs on campus, and I found this job in the HR office. I learned more about the Wisconsin Union, and that made me pretty excited. Also, being able to work in such a central location, in such a beautiful building where something is always going on. I’ve worked here six years, and I still walk into the building and take pictures.
What does a day in your life at the Wisconsin Union look like?
Every day does look a little different. There are different priorities depending on the time of year. Fall and spring are the busy student hiring seasons. A lot of my focus is on student hiring around those times. For my other responsibilities, they go on throughout the year. Even though it’s really busy in the fall and spring, and my priorities are just in student recruitment, there’s always other things going on, as well. We have permanent staff recruitment that can happen anytime with turnover or if there are new positions. There is no shortage of things to do.
What is your favorite part of working at the Wisconsin Union?
Working with all the different staff that work here, whether that be with one of the 1600+ student staff or 300+ full-time staff. The Union, I think, is very unique in that there’s so many different programs and kinds of staff that you might not see on different areas on campus.
Just the student employees, seeing college students getting their degrees in whatever they are interested in and then working alongside and learning from them. I co-supervise all of our student staff that work in our HR office. It’s always super exciting to hire new students and then see them graduate. It keeps things exciting, because every day and every year could be a little different depending on your student staff that you have in office and what their majors are.
What is something that people may not know about Wisconsin Union employment?
A lot of the perks that I hear students are surprised by is the most surprising thing. It’s pretty exciting, because you get the pins every semester, the chance to win employee of the month, the lifetime membership and other perks. We have study rooms reserved for only Union students. We also have offered resume and cover letter reviews with our leadership team, which I think is a pretty valuable experience for a student but also to get that time with our leadership team.
The other thing is that we are not just dining units on campus. There are other types of jobs. A lot of people just assume there is just dining jobs, but when I talk about the Wisconsin Union Theater, Outdoor UW, Wheelhouse, our facility jobs, they are always surprised to hear we have other jobs.
What makes working at the Wisconsin Union special?
Just working alongside so many different staff members and getting to learn about different backgrounds and different experiences, I think that makes the Wisconsin Union special. It makes the work that I do more rewarding.
Also, we have so many different buildings, and it’s really cool to go to the different spaces that we have to offer and check out the different programming. I think that makes working here really special to know that it’s not just one space. There are a lot of things to offer.
What do you hear from people currently employed at the Union that they enjoy about working here?
What I hear the most is the people they work with, whether that is student employees or the other staff because they learn so much from others.
Why should students consider working at the Wisconsin Union?
The fact that we have 1,600 to 1,700 student employees is pretty exciting, because, in every office, there is going to be a student employee. For student employees to go into an environment where there are other students is definitely less intimidating. For example, coming into an HR office can be kind of scary, but, if you see a room full of other students, it’s not as scary, and I think that’s a pretty unique thing to the Wisconsin Union.
Is there anything else about Wisconsin Union employment that you would like people to know?
The jobs tab on our website has a lot of great information and is often overlooked. A lot of our jobs are very flexible in terms of hour commitments. I would suggest just go for it, and try it out because it is low stakes. We are hiring all year for student employees, but fall and spring are usually our big hiring seasons.
If you have any questions about Wisconsin Union employment, you can email questions to hr@union.wisc.edu or studentrecruiting@union.wisc.edu. For more information about employment opportunities, benefits and resources visit here.
