I recently made the following post: What would your advice be if you find it ‘impossible’ per se with a capital i to advance in the HR profession?

I now wish to expand on this as follows:

* Just like trying to get a job, it’s a catch 22 that you can’t get an HR Advisor’s job without already having HR Advisory experience, hence already having been one or previously having been one (and possibly similar to then becoming an HRBP & HRD)

* I can’t get, gain, show or demonstrate such HR Advisory experience in an HR Administrator’s role. After all, it’s an HR Administrator, not an HR Advisor, and there is also a fine limit to how much you can dress it up or stretch it. Someone on the shop floor can’t really call themselves the Managing Director of the company or start shadowing them to gain experience to be there replacement.

* Similarly, my all my outside HR Advisory volunteering and CIPD branch mentoring activities don’t work, help or have any effect in delivering or securing an HR Advisor’s role, as they are not considered formalised paid 9-5’s, which of course they are not.

Thus, I can’t comment about how other people may do it, but in my particular case and specific circumstances, this ‘structural and systematic disconnect of unable to tick the essential HR Advisory experience box on a person specification’ when making an application, made it ‘impossible’ per se for me to advance, progress or go any further and deeper in the HR profession.

In short, the employers say that I don’t have  the experience and I also can’t get the experience. There is also usually an expectation that ‘overtime people go up,’ but it does not happen in my case. Few Junior or Trainee HR Advisor roles exist, and the ones which do and I applied for did not take me.

Therefore, I would like some advice on the following alternatives:

(1) Could my age firstly be an issue here?

I will be 45 next month, only got into HR at 40 as a mid career changer, and although I have the CIPD 7, Associate Membership, an MSc in International HRM and four years HR Administration experience, I am also keenly aware that I don’t fit the typical stereotype of most people who got into the profession in their 20s and 30s. Possibly a case of 10-15 years too late here, with the employers preferring younger candidates, even if they don’t openly say so and you can’t prove it?

I can also clearly see the typical stereotype pattern of who they mainly take in those roles as well.

(2) As I don’t wish this to develop into a long term obsession, it I go all out and over the next six years attempt to clock up a total of some ten years worth of HR Administration experience and aim to be one of the best HR Administrator’s in the country (if such an accolade does exist), would the longevity translate into seniority to start to be able to take on and advise independent clients of my own?

They can see that I am professionally qualified, experienced and always had a job in HR, but just could not get or make the jump to the next position on the career ladder.

(3) Could I potentially compensate and shore up for not being able to go any further into the profession in an employed capacity  by taking a CIPD 7 in L&D to combine with the one I have in HRM, or possibly consider an MSc in Occupational Psychology?

I would then have certain things (along with being able to speak Dutch, French and German) that the one others would not have.

(4) There is a saying of: “those who can’t teach.” Combing all my current four years HR Administration experience and qualifications into one, does a separate career pathway exist, if one took a PhD to become a Lecturer, Guest Speaker or Professor of HR?

Finally, I have considered a change of career into marketing, but again I would need to start out at the bottom as I don’t have the experience and re-quality with the professional CIM exams.

Any advice then on the complexity of this situation? I managed to break into, obtained and have a job in HR as an HR Administrator and did the CIPD 7, but it never goes any further or deeper than just that alone.