There is no agreed set of standard job roles in HR. What one organisation calls a HRD another might call a HR Manager or HRBP.

You are right to look at what the job involves and get sone idea of the skills and experiences you will be gaining in any role rather than just the title.

Coordinator is probably a step down from officer. But HR Officer is now quite an old fashioned title and it doesn’t tend to fit well into many modern structures.

Personally if you can afford it, and at this stage of your career, I would take the role that gives you the greatest experience. As you have found already getting started can be the hardest part.

Hi Keith

Thank you for your reply. Yes am finding it difficult to get started but as I was on a higher salary (mainly because of my finance experience and responsibilities )than the one I have interviewed for, it feels like a demotion and especially at my age (45 plus). I decided too late in life for a career change. I guess I will have to get past that and start at the bottom and make my way up in HR.

I know I have the skills set but I just need a break.

Regards
Tazeen

Broadly speaking, the steps are HR Administrator -> HR Advisor -> HR Manager/HR Business Partner

In the space between Administrator and Advisor you may also find "Assistant", "Coordinator" or "Officer" roles, which generally represent a transition point where someone is formally qualified but lacks the technical experience to independently advise on employee relations issues, which tends to be the meat and drink of the HR Advisor.

"Officer" in particular is usually a sign of an organization with a public sector background - either a public sector body, a charity or a business that provides services into the public sector - and is usually a flag to a very process-driven organization.

Don't let your age discourage you from starting again. A good friend has just made the step into HR in his 50s, joining the CIPD as a Student member. Remember that we (I'm 47) are a generation who can reasonably expect to work into our 70s, so even with ten years' experience you might still have ten years or more, which would represent at least three career steps before retirement.

Just the other day I was looking at the CV of a colleague who had worked her way from HR Assistant to Senior HR Business Partner in nine years, never staying in a role more than 18 months and always looking for the next step up. It was an impressive career trajectory.

Thanks Robey...

My job title is Team Coordinator, but I'm the HR Manager - my workplace chose it because they didn't like the association some people have with HR. I don't have the association of coordinator with admin roles and it certainly isn't the case at my workplace, but then the job role and salary were quite clear this was an HR Manager job. That's the trouble with all these different titles, what it means to one person is wildly different from someone else.

In reply to Rosie :

You may also find that generalist HR roles pay less than generalist Finance roles - so the drop in salary may be due to the fact that the role does not require finance expertise rather than the HR elements are more junior.

I agree with Keith on this, there are some broad trends on job titles but they can mean anything depending on the organisation. In my current workplace I joined as HR Assistant but I was really a standalone HR Generalist doing everything from recruitment to exit interviews. We were quite small so we didn't have much ER to get experience from. We since then recruited a HR Director and were able to put my development plan in and changed my job title to reflect my actual role more realistically. I am currently also slowly getting more ER exposure but it was also previously a block for me to progress...It can be difficult to gain real hand's on experience in smaller companies. I hope you find something soon, maybe sometimes it's good to take a little step back but if it offers a good development and career progression plan then you could soon find yourself where you want to be :)