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Impossible with a capital 'i' to advance in the HR profession?

Andre

You have the CIPD 7, Associate Membership of the body, an MSc in International HRM, are considering a PhD in HR / Occupational Psychology and have four years experience working as an HR Administrator.

However, despite of all of that, you basically still can’t get above HR Administrator level to the next level or get an HR Advisor’s level role.

Part of the issue is that they don’t take on Trainee / Junior HR Advisor’s (or indeed Trainee / Junior HRBP’s) and you can’t get the necessary experience in an HR Administrator’s role to get the HR Advisor’s job.

You volunteer outside hours as an HR Advisor and as a CIPD Mentor, and attend all the events in your branch, but it still does not count or is officially recognised as a formal paid 9-5 role to make the cut.

It’s also one of those scenarios that it just does not ever happen for / to you how many applications you ever make, so are any of the following viable options to take instead:

(1) Come to terms with it and make a life long career as an HR Administrator instead, or as a Senior HR Administrator, aiming to be the very best that you can be at that;

(2) Pull completely out of the HR profession as a whole and change career sectors, professions and pathways, starting out again  from zero;

(3) Emigrate and see if you can get the role instead in another country in or outside the EU;

(4) Look at going self employed as an HR Consultant on the Peninsula model?

How would you personally deal with it if you faced a total brick wall blockage that despite your very best efforts, you just could not vertically progress, get on or up in the HR profession as a whole past HR Administrator?

Parents
  • Hi Andrea

    I see what you mean and agree with you on many points. However, I would suggest changing your employers...go for an HR Admin post in a smaller organisation that rewards hardwork with some form of career development. Set yourself a goal...in a year, HR Assistant, in two years HR Coordinator then HR Advisor.
    It might take some humbling but hopefully the finding the right organisation will set you on course.
  • in reply to Cynthia

    Dear Cynthia et al,

    I have made a final decision here. I am going to pull out of and completely leave the profession. I broke into HR later than the average in my early 40s, are 45 on Sunday and also now find the added situation that I ‘simply can’t get’ other work or other jobs in it at all etc. It’s like a complete meltdown.The reason of course is that I can’t get the experience, but despite having the Level 7, Associate Membership and an advanced degree, I can only get HR Administrator jobs in the NHS, can’t get above that level and also can’t get into the private sector. I have also made over the past theee years 63,000 job applications in total worldwide on LinkedIn with the click of the profile button, but the ones who do respond say that other candidate’s experience is both more relevant to our business needs and better matches the requirements of the position.

    Why indefinitely flog a dead horse or bang your head against a brick wall. It is actually ‘impossible’ in my case to both move or get anywhere in or with this profession. Perhaps I entered it too late at 40.

    So, the question I now need to ask is that how easy or difficult will it be to embark on a career sector change in my mid 40s and break into marketing from HR with no previous marketing experience, even if I take the CIM exams along the way?

    Kind regards

    André

  • in reply to Andre
    I don’t have and can’t get the relevant experience in a 9-5 in short.
  • in reply to Andre
    I have tried to cut tobthe chase all along. On thuscsnd your other threads.

    Whilst undoubtedly your age/experience/qualifications profile will be a factor for some I do think one of the big factors in securing a role is approach and communications in applying both verbally in person and in writing.

    Given that you are now going into marketing I fear that will be an even bigger challenge for anyone looking to make the move you are.

    Good luck!
  • in reply to Keith

    I gather then that the conventional wisdom is that one cannot or should not embark on a career sector change, or if they do, they need to be prepared to start out again at the very bottom, ie an HRD could not become a Marketing Director as they don’t have the track record of relevant matching experience and would effectively need to go in on the level that of an intern or a Marketing Assistant.

    Thus, the job market is less flexible and also ageist at the same time, and your job title also defines largely who and what you are.

  • in reply to Andre

    Finally for today as I have a role to commute to now, I also think that prople largely carry professional labels with them and can be very easily locked into a role and on a particular level based on their experience, ie you are an HR Administrator, I am an HRBP, just focus on your role, the day job in hand and don’t start being a dreamer or try and get above your station etc. You are largely what your job title says what you are in a hierarchy.

    Could it have also been the case that in reality and practice, there were not actually so many opportunities and vacancies for progression in the HR profession that I initially thought there were and most people do actually stay on the same level or can either get the role or not?

    After all, if everyone is or wants to be an HRD, where are all the HR Advisors coming from? 

    There always comes a time when it’s either ‘now or never,’ and I feel that I have reached that time, two days short of my 45th birthday.

    What is the point in going on with this for the  next 4 years and putting my weekends into applications when they just send me automated rejection emails in return saying that other candidates had more closer matching experience to suit and fit our business needs and the requirements of the role than yourself.

  • in reply to Andre
    Andre

    To be honest I am not sure you are taking in what I or colleagues have said on this thread where it differs from your own narrative.

    People can and do make career changes into HR and out of it.

    People can and do enter the profession in their forties and make a success of it.

    People can and do move up from HR Admin roles even though the competition is hard.

    People can and go even manage to break out of the NHS into the private sector.

    But you so far haven’t been able to. So I go back to my Option “0” in my first post on this thread back in the first week of November. If you want to succceed in this career or in any other it’s about ensuring you present your own narrative in the most compelling way possible online, on LinkedIn, in your applications and where lucky enough at interview.

    Just pressing “apply” on LinkedIn 30 or 40 times a week isn’t a compelling or successful strategy. Taking the time to craft 3 or 4 target applications might be.

    As you move into marketing you will need to address the same issues ( and now also explain your brief stay in HR after law) tovany recruiters. I would spend the next few weeks working on that narrative and working on a compelling pitch for recruiters.

    Good luck.
  • in reply to Keith

    Dear Keith,

    Many thanks for your response.

    I fully understand the option 0 and that it also works, is not impossible for and can also deliver for other people. In my case however it does not.

    I can and do get job interviews which I attend and the feedback afterwards is very impressive. They liked and enjoyed meeting me as a candidate, were extremely impressed with my credentials and I also do  not do, say or behave in anyway inappropriately throughout the process.

    However, when it comes down to the final crunch, I cannot actually convert job interviews into job offers, as they always go for or with another candidate instead, and the general type of feedback I get is although the lines of:

    “We very much enjoyed meeting with you in person, considered you an outstanding candidate and very highly impressed with your experience, skills and qualifications to date that we also found very interesting.

    However, despite of that, we regret to inform you that we are unable to offer you employment as during the process we identified a small number of other candidates whose overall credentials date were a slightly closer fit and better match to what we were looking for.”

    I get that every single time after an interview so here we are and straight from the horses mouth.

    I also pass many interviews, tests and assessment centres at top scores, but they still at the end of the day opt for and choose another candidate.

    Thus, I am ticking the right boxes to get the interview, behave, act and communicate entirely appropriately throughout the whole process and they also consider me an excellent candidate, but no job offer ultimately materialises from it all.

    All what I can say is that it is a highly competitive arena, they seek an almost identical 100% match and that there are also always other candidates out there who pip you to the post, being largely an application numbers game and lottery.

    I also do strategic targeted networking to tap the hidden advertised jobs marked by sending speculative letters to organisations.

    The ones who respond tell me to look and apply online or register for vacancy email alerts, say that they cannot accept CVs or that they don’t have any vacancies at present but will keep me on file for future consideration.

    Kind regards

    André

  • in reply to Andre
    It’s essentially a type of systematic and structural issue here if you cannot ‘break in.’

    Many organisations hire only at certain times when vacancies exist, but in all honestly here, it may come down to personality. They are interested in me, liked and enjoyed meeting me and also consider I have outstanding credentials but still reject the person behind the paper, application or CV.

    I would say, as I have slight Asperger’s Syndrome (neurodiversity), that if my overall style, approach, subtleties of interpersonal interaction can come across as a bit different, untypical or unique in style that they
    don’t quite get, understand, can interpret or put their finger on, compared to all the other candidates they see on the day, that this can also add an extra dimension and spike to the Recruitment process and how the existing team would take and find me if they did have me onboard.

    Any thoughts?
  • in reply to Andre
    Andre

    To be honest the feedback "I can and do get job interviews which I attend and the feedback afterwards is very impressive. They liked and enjoyed meeting me as a candidate, were extremely impressed with my credentials and I also do not do, say or behave in anyway inappropriately throughout the process." is probably the feedback that 90%+ of organisations give to any unsuccessful candidates (if they give any at all) as it allows them to exit the process without risking saying anything that might come back to haunt them.

    If you are getting interviews in sufficient numbers and not converting them then for me it IS your interview style that is the break point regardless of the standardised risk adverse feedback you are getting.
  • in reply to Keith
    Have you sought out any interview coaching or similar? I coach women returners to work for a charity, and it's really positive. Having neutral and independent feedback might really help you to communicate your skills and experience in a way that gets more positive results.
  • in reply to Keith

    I spoke to a friend (who is not in HR) about this issue and they gave me the best possible, practical and realistic advice.

    Welcome to the real and adult world, we don’t always get what we want and if you can’t ever get an HR Advisor’s role, you can’t and have at least tried your very best.

    At least I have a job as an HR Administrator that pays the bills instead of being long term unemployed and should learn to be content and grateful for having that at least, despite having a Level 7.

    Organisations have the right to choose their own staff team and if they don’t want to take you for wherever reason, tough and that’s life.

    Perhaps option 1 is thus the most realistic and practical to follow and make a long term career out of being an HR Administrator, whilst doing a PhD on the side to show that I still have certain abilities despite the job title.

    Any thoughts and what makes you feel that Marketing would be anymore difficult? 

Reply
  • in reply to Keith

    I spoke to a friend (who is not in HR) about this issue and they gave me the best possible, practical and realistic advice.

    Welcome to the real and adult world, we don’t always get what we want and if you can’t ever get an HR Advisor’s role, you can’t and have at least tried your very best.

    At least I have a job as an HR Administrator that pays the bills instead of being long term unemployed and should learn to be content and grateful for having that at least, despite having a Level 7.

    Organisations have the right to choose their own staff team and if they don’t want to take you for wherever reason, tough and that’s life.

    Perhaps option 1 is thus the most realistic and practical to follow and make a long term career out of being an HR Administrator, whilst doing a PhD on the side to show that I still have certain abilities despite the job title.

    Any thoughts and what makes you feel that Marketing would be anymore difficult? 

Children
  • in reply to Andre
    Or was that just the answer you wanted to hear?
  • in reply to Andre
    Andre

    This is not scientific but my sense is that marketing (it its truest sense) is in general more prone to ageism than HR. Most of the careers I have seen in marketing tend to be 20/30's and early 40's then often people go off and do something else either working for themselves of a different field. Not to say there aren't very successful people older in Marketing roles but I think it would be far harder to break into.

    I also think given what you have said about your approach to job searching and interviews that breaking into a true marketing role (as opposed to just being an administrator in a different department) will be quite challenging for you.

    If being a HR Administrator and getting a PhD alongside it will make you happy and give you satisfaction then go for it. As I think I said earlier (or on another of your threads) you are an experiment of one and need to work out what works for you.

    But this morning you were adamant that you were giving up on HR and going down the marketing path, this afternoon you are considering staying in HR but doing a PhD. So I think finding a trusted coach or confident who can help you walk step by step through your choices, who can help you realise your true strengths and weaknesses and who can help you decide on the right path would be time well spent.

    Best of luck

    keith
  • in reply to Keith
    Having realistically looked into it over the weekend, I can’t get into marketing at the age of 45. It may take years to break in and also involve years of trying to secure unpaid internships to gain enough experience to secure a paid entry level role, whilst paying for CIM studies alongside that with no guarantee of ever actually getting any position at all.

    So, living now in the real world and as I can’t become an HR Practitioner, I see the final options as in order of realistic sequence:

    (1) Staying and doing what I am doing now and making a long term career as an HR Administrator;

    (2) A lateral move by combining both the CIPD Level 7 in HR and L&D to become an L&D Administrator;

    (3) Trying to get into freelance training, HR and L&D Consulting;

    (4) HR Academia with a PhD;

    (5) Leaving the profession and training for a new field more open to mid career changers.

    Impasse is the word to use here, but I feel that the real root and underlying cause is that age old catch 22 cycle that you can’t get a job without experience and experience without a job, and now require experience on the next level to move to the next level.

    There are no automatic guarantees and vertical progression is never a given.

    Finally and on a separate note, although it is not an issue for me at all, I see a clear pattern in my present role that I am the only male HR Administrator in a team of 15, one of the oldest and all the other males are Advisors, Managers or HRBP’s. Any conclusions I should draw from that?
  • in reply to Andre
    No conclusions at all. It’s just how it is in your department and for me has no relevance to your struggles to get on. Indeed if there is ( as your underlying suggestion seems to be) sone underlying sex discrimination allowing males to progress then this should make it easier not harder for you to progress.

    As for your options you have been given loads of advice from colleagues as to what may be holding you back and what steps you might take to move on. I am not sure I can add anything useful to them.
  • in reply to Andre
    Beware of allowing a misguided sense of entitlement to enter your thought processes. I'm still perplexed by your belief that you "can't become an HR practitioner".
  • in reply to Robey
    I'll just throw my hat into the ring here - I 'only' have CIPD level 3 and I did that about 8 years ago. However I was already in an HR Advisory role when I started it, and have held various positions since in a range of different organisations, including HRBP, ER specialist and HR Ops manager.

    I accepted that I would need to keep leaving places to get better jobs elsewhere - I've never found a place where there has been much emphasis on (or sometimes, opportunity for) internal progression. That doesn't suit everyone, some people prefer to spend longer with one company even if they don't get to progress. I was willing to do what it took and I think that also got me wider experience in different areas and types of business, so when I go to interviews now I find I can nearly always draw on experience gained from somewhere similar, even if it was a few years ago. This always seems to trump the lack of CIPD 5 or 7 (they usually ask why I dont have these and I give my standard answer which they tend to accept).

    So how did I get into an Advisory role in the first place? I started as an Administrator and later got an HR Officer role in a small company - it was then down to me to make my mark and I set about recommending lots of changes, I was pro-active. I researched what I didn't know and used free advisory helplines and the internet. I made it my business to learn as much about HR as I could and was then able to impart what was usually deemed as helpful wisdom! I even ended up handling an unfair dismissal tribunal claim. This then enabled me to secure a more traditional HRA role in a larger company and I just continued to grow and move on. I wouldn't say I have progressed massively in my career, its taken a lot of years to get from HRA to HRBP level but I dont think having CIPD 7 would have really helped fast track that.

    One of the key themes I've noticed is that for more senior roles, employers love it if you have an industry specific background, even though HR is very transferable. If you really feel you are stuck as an Administrator then perhaps try and get a similar role in a different type of company, to at least broaden your industry background.
  • in reply to Robey

    I can’t speak for other individuals as all of our circumstances are unique, but in my particular case it is virtually impossible. I am also being realistic and have come to terms with it, but also grateful that at least I have a job as an HR Administrator.

    I entered the profession at 40, have a CIPD 7 and can’t get formal 9-5 advisory experience.

    The result is an imbalance between education and experience with possibly my age being now against me having turned 45 yesterday.

    Although I was a mid career changer, people also expect you to be on a certain level at a certain stage of life.

    That just did not happen, work or deliver for me, or put another way, I got left behind on and in the labour market.

    In short, I couldn’t get the position(s), it is more difficult to find work and / or start a new career after 40 and I also can’t break into the private sector either.  

  • in reply to Andre

    To summarise this all is a fine nutshell, jobs wise for the profession, HR Administrator is all that I can get, and the situation and circumstance does not change either overtime or with studies. The employers say that I don’t have the experience and I also can’t get the experience. They simply don’t take me. 

    I have ‘a job’ at least which is far better than being out of work and which I should be thankful for.

  • in reply to Andre

    Hi Andre,

    Andre said:
    Although I was a mid career changer, people also expect you to be on a certain level at a certain stage of life.

    I applaud you for opening this thread in the first place. I think there is a certain amount of truth about what you say here, but in my view it is important to build a compelling personal and professional narrative and show others by a positive tone and actions and 'lean forward' attitude that managers can put their trust in you.