HR professional prepares to grow career through formal training
Sometimes your future career turns out to be one you’ve never even thought about. For Vancouver’s Shaista Kara, who recently completed the Human Resources Management Certificate program, becoming an HR professional had never been on her radar. “It sort of fell into my lap,” she recalls. Today, as a people coordinator, she’s involved in workforce planning and scheduling for some 3,000 part-time staff.
When Shaista graduated from SFU with a degree in gender studies and a minor in communications, it was the early days of the pandemic. Like many new graduates at the time, she found herself in limbo. With limited options, she applied for an internship with Canucks Sports and Entertainment, which owns and operates teams and venues including the Vancouver Canucks and Rogers Arena. Luckily, Shaista’s internship evolved into a part-time role, then to her current full-time role in HR.
“When I first started, I didn't really know much about HR,” she admits. But she soon discovered how rewarding it can be: “I really like the idea of helping others and being able to support them through the full employee life cycle. From doing an interview to onboarding someone, and then seeing them progress in their role and then maybe offboarding them when their career grows—that has been my favourite part of my current role so far.”

To continue moving forward, Shaista felt she needed formal training to augment what she’d learned on the job. She chose SFU’s program on the recommendation of a colleague. “I also liked how you can just work on the courses in your own time, which works great when you’re also working full time,” she notes.
The courses she completed have definitely helped to fill in the gaps, she notes. “It’s allowed me to get a better overall understanding of HR.”
In some ways, says Shaista, the program has helped her participate more fully in her organization. “It’s definitely helped me build my confidence,” she explains. “Before taking the program, I felt I wasn’t able to contribute and participate in meetings, or I would not think that my ideas were worth sharing. And now I feel like I have more confidence in being able to share my ideas and come up with concepts and different processes.”
Shaista adds that her learning also introduced her to areas she hadn’t considered before: “I really enjoyed learning about employee engagement, which was not something I was interested in at all, before the program.” Shaista has now helped to develop a staff blog that includes FAQs to assist new employees during their onboarding.
Now that she’s graduated with her certificate, Shaista says she’s ready to grow in her current role and see what more she can do at her organization. After all, she says, things are always in motion at Canucks Sports and Entertainment.
“It’s definitely fun,” she laughs. “When you first start with the company, everything’s really exciting because it’s like, oh wow, this artist is in the building today. There are hockey players in the elevators sometimes. You never know what will happen next.”
By Kim Mah