Progressing an HR career - General - Careers Clinic

2 Progressing an HR career

24 Apr, 2019 17:17

I am currently working as the Chief Operating Officer for a small firm of about 30 people. In this role, I have responsibility for HR and this ranges from keeping the admin (i.e. leave records and personnel files) in order and dealing with all our recruitment to having handled redundancies, Settlement Agreements and COT3 (we've never quite made it all the way to the Tribunal). I can also see TUPE on the horizon as we've recently acquired another business (though the two are not yet fully merged). I'm currently studying for my CIPD Intermediate Award in Employment Law (level 5). Moreover, earlier in my career, I spent 5 years as a researcher at an executive search and selection consultancy. I also have an advanced level of management training in that I completed my CIM Level 7 diploma a few years ago and this covered issues such as reputation management, strategic planning, financial analysis and risk management.

I am very attracted to specialising in HR and am wondering what my options are, given my experience and interests. I am opening to most ideas, including taking a step backwards if that is what it takes to reach my end goal, and adding to my qualifications.

I'd be grateful for people's thoughts on what I can do and where I can look.

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Kevin Elvidge | 0 Posts

24 Apr, 2019 21:37

Target HR jobs in sectors with which you are familiar and big up the extensive HR experience that you have accumulated in your current and previous operations assignments. I'm sure that a combination of knowledge of a specific sector and your HR experience would be of great interest to those wanting to hire a business savvy/commercial HR professional. An HR post in a Market Research company for example might be one such target.
Given the amount of HR work that you are doing in your current role ...isn't there a case for more accurately reflecting the ( HR) scope of your role in your job title by calling yourself Chief HR and Operating Officer.
I also saw a very helpful post earlier today on a related topic - this is the post ( from Andrea) albeit relating to applications being made in the public sector ...but the advice holds good for all sectors " You should read the job description, person specification and other material carefully and then very specifically address in your application how you meet the requirements of the post. Most public sector organisations provide a lot of information to applicants, including on their webpages. Making a job application is likely a very time consuming process as you have to tailor your application to the organisation and the post. Good luck!"
In your situation tailoring how you position your experience to the job you are applying for will be critical to your success in achieving your ( career) goal
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Elizabeth Divver | 0 Posts

24 Apr, 2019 23:07

Hi Heidi

We quite often get people asking for advice from the community on moving into HR from people with qualifications but no experience or even neither qualifications nor experience. I don’t think the answers to those posts will be much help to you as you actually do have some experience.

I really like Kevin’s suggestion of changing your job description. People say job titles don’t matter, but when someone is assessing CVs, they really do. You task will be to help a recruiter see how a piece labelled COO will fit into the HR-shaped hole in their jigsaw.

You might give yourself the best chance if you target SMEs looking for someone to be stand alone and stress in your application that you are used to doing the mundane routine work such as looking after the files and other admin as well as advising on the high-level situations like TUPE.
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