July 2008 Updates

Martha Hennen, PTC/MW President
United States Postal Service

As you know, PTC/MW has now held two events, a Breakfast Workshop and a Luncheon, at the new George Mason University-Arlington location. Attendance at both events has been encouraging, particularly at the June Breakfast Workshop. As always, we strongly welcome your feedback on the facilities, the food, and the convenience of location. We have elected to stay at George Mason for a few more events, including the upcoming Luncheon on July 9. During that time, we will continue to respond to members’ feedback to ensure that the quality of the services at these events meets your expectations. Let us know what you think.

On a related note, we are trying to gauge interest and the value of offering continuing education offerings through PTC/MW. Our monthly events represent outstanding opportunities for educational and professional development. One way to encourage continued participation would be to offer credit for participation in these events to those members who hold licenses (e.g., licensed psychologists) or professional certifications (e.g., HR Certification Institute certification). However, establishing and documenting how our programs would meet the criteria for offering such credit may not be justified. To quantify the level of interest in pursuing this effort, we will be sending out a “pulse survey” of the membership. This survey will consist of a short series of questions addressing the number of members interested in taking advantage of PTC/MW events to support certification or licensure requirements and the organizations PTC/MW should consider when offering credits. We ask that you take a few moments to provide this information. One of PTC/MW’s mission statements is to:  “Encourage and provide education and training in personnel measurement and selection.” We want to ensure that we are offering benefits that support our members’ continuing education and professional development needs. Thank you in advance for your help.

The winners of our Second Annual Graduate Student Research Competition will be presented at this month’s Luncheon (Wed., July 9th). We encourage you to take the opportunity to support and learn from our student members. In this session, Tiffany Bludau, George Mason University, will present:  “Applicant Reactions to Web-Based Selection Systems” and Megan Shaw, George Washington University, will present:  “Development of the Anchored Preferential Personality Measure: Reducing Susceptibility to Response Distortions.”  Click here <http://www.ptcmw.org/index.htm> to register for the event and for directions to the George Mason University-Arlington campus.
As a friendly reminder, in order to plan adequately for event attendance, it is important that members register for a PTC/MW event on or before the Monday preceding the Luncheon or Workshop. Although we may be able to accommodate a small number who sign up late for an event, the facilities services may not be prepared for a large number of late shows. Please help us plan ahead by signing up early. Encourage colleagues to do the same. Thank you for your understanding.

Finally, be sure to check out PTC/MW’s latest listing of job and internship openings at http://www.ptcmw.org/jobs.htm. We consider this listing a great resource to our members, particularly our student members, and strongly encourage you to share job and internship openings at your organization with your PTC/MW colleagues. PTC/MW has and will continue to post openings relevant to our members free-of-charge, both on our website and in our Quarterly Newsletter. See our “Job Openings” page for instructions on posting a job or internship announcement.

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