John B. and Lillian E. Neff College of Business and Innovation

Kyle Warner - Human Resource Assistant (Mountain Manor: Maryland Treatment Centers)

Kyle Warner - Mountain Manor: Maryland Treatment Centers

The one thing I love about my job is the chance to give people the opportunity to prove themselves in the workplace and to grow personally and professionally.  I love Mountain Manor because you feel like you’re making a difference everyday by helping adolescents, young adults and adults overcome substance abuse.  Every employee there is very supportive to the patients and it’s an honor to work there.

I have various responsibilities that touch in different areas of the company. Some of my responsibilities include recruiting, allocating HR costs, employment verifications, benefits, setting up orientations/annual trainings, and administrative duties.

In the recruitment process I set up board meeting with the managers who need to hire employees, make a list of their needs and desires for a candidate, post jobs on specific web pages, pick the most qualified candidates, interview them with the manager and await manager's decision.

For employment verifications, I follow procedures for current and previous employees and provide only required information we can give by law.

In regards to benefits my responsibility is to do the initial setup and updates to all employees of Mount Manor on the benefit webpage and the HRIS. I also answer the general questions employees have about the benefits.

My most important responsibilities are on the administrative side in which I file training tests, I-9, background and other various items. I also take phone calls, keep everything up to date for when auditors (state and federal) randomly stop by, and work on events to increase employee morale.

The HR assistant position fits my career goals because I am not only learning various activities of human resources, but also other functions of the company. This is my stepping stone to be able to move further into the company and take on other challenging positions.

COBI helped me in a few ways to be successful in this position. The main reason I am successful is the college taught me more than just my major classes. At the time, I thought learning the other courses was pointless, but I actually use different functions from the other classes which helps me to not only be successful, but also more marketable. The amount of coursework I was given also helped, because it basically trained me to better manage my time to be efficient and effective when getting projects done by a deadline.

Although COBI didn’t find this specific position, it did help me in regards to finding positions like it as well as preparing me for the interviews. Thanks to COBI I gained and maintained a mentor from the mock interview session (Jordan Skorich). Thanks to his and COBI advice, I was able to obtain this position over 250 other candidates.

The reason I chose COBI is it had my major In human resources, I was looking for how to be successful myself and to help others be successful in the workforce, and I heard from an abundance of students - -  including staff from Owens Community College - - that the school was tough but very effective in teaching and helping students succeed. 

I chose human resources as my this career path because as I worked and moved up in positions, I enjoyed building and maintaining people’s relationships, but I also enjoyed the success and ensuring everyone was being treated equally.  Human resources was the best fit because I would be doing various activities that involved analytical thinking and assisting all the employees of the company to challenge themselves,  work in a safe and enjoyable environment and potentially save the company money in the long term.

If someone was considering going to COBI to study, I would tell them to do it. If you truly want to learn different aspects of the company and truly test and surpass your limits, this is the route to take. The atmosphere is great for learning, there are plenty of groups, fraternities and sororities to join to connect with others, the teachers care about your success and there are special places to get studying and group projects done.

What I learned about being successful in COBI was networking and preparation. Networking can lead you to land great jobs post graduation or later on in life. Preparation will help you be efficient and effective for any challenge that may come your way.  My advice to current students is go to the job fair at least once, go to a mock interview and networking. Don’t limit yourself to one location/job type. The sky is the limit: look outside the box and make yourself differentiable. It’s what got me my job.

Last Updated: 6/27/22