Williams School of Business’ Excalibur Team excels in HR Case Competition

Williams School of Business’ Excalibur Team excels in HR Case Competition

Along with the recent success of our business students at other case competitions, the Williams School of Business can now add Excalibur to its list of accomplishments. Excalibur is a tournament, in its 24th year of operation, that teaches students how to solve a real-life work situation in a competitive setting organized by practitioners within the Human Resources (HR) industry. The case competition is open to all Canadian Universities that offer HR management or industrial relations programs. It is organized by the Canadian Council of Human Resources Associations (CCHRA) and is hosted by HEC Montreal.

This year, four Bishop’s Students demonstrated their strong abilities at the competition by making it to the final round of competition. This year’s competition was held on March 19th and 20th in vibrant Montreal, QC. The team consisted of Michelle Gibbon, Laura Megan, and Leandra Telefoglou, with Yun Zhang as an alternate. The team was coached by Derek Heatherington and Prof. Lissa McRae.

The tournament is comprised of three phases: three preliminary cases on the first day of competition, a ‘last chance event,’ and finals, where teams have 40 minutes to prepare a ten minute presentation for a case they have never seen before. This involves reading the case, preparing a problem statement and recommendation, as well as an action plan all within the allotted time!

The first day’s round of competition consisted of participants being judged on initial analyses as well as on a Human Resources quiz. From there judges choose the top seven teams to move onto the final day of competition. Schools in the final round included: University of Waterloo, Concordia University, Trent University, University of Alberta, University of Saskatchewan, and Bishop’s University.

The winners of this year’s tournament were Concordia, Waterloo and Saskatchewan; only the top three winners are acknowledged. The top three winners also get cash prizes to be shared among winning team members of $1500 for 3rd prize, $2250 for 2nd prize and $3000 for 1st prize

Although our school is definitely the smallest represented at the Excalibur Tournament, the team managed to beat out larger post-secondary institutions including Sherbrooke University, UBC, University of  New Brunswick, McGill University, University of Western Ontario and UQAM, among many others.

Having made it to the final round two years in a row, our Bishop’s team is very proud of their accomplishments. The competition participants also mentioned how great a learning experience this tournament was to them.

Laura Megan remarked, “It is Excalibur and the experience surrounding it that fuelled my interest even further in the field of Human Resources. Being afforded this great opportunity to showcase my knowledge from the classroom and transfer it to solving actual business cases has increased my confidence and enthusiasm. Collaboration, strategic thinking and respect were all involved in this experience.”

Congratulations to our Bishop’s competitors and their coaches on their hard effort and success at this year’s tournament!