Career change

Any recommendations?

Lower your expectations. With no HR experience, despite your hospitality experience, you are unlikely to obtain a role with management or supervisory responsibility. This means that you are likely to need to take a pay cut to get your foot on the ladder. The entry point is either HR Assistant (mostly assisting HR Advisors, preparing case files, note taking in meetings, providing direct advice to employees on policy, holiday, sickness absence etc) or HR Administrator (maintaining personnel files, processing onboarding and inductions, updating training records, managing HRIS).

Be prepared to be mobile. The wider you are prepared to cast your net, in terms of commuting time, the more likely you are to secure a role by simple mathematics.

Go agency. Sign up to as many temp agencies as you can, including de facto agencies like your local authority's temporary staff register and the NHS Bank. Be clear that you are looking for work in HR. The advantage with temp work is that no one expects you to be there for very long, but it all adds to your CV so, once you can secure one job in HR, even on a 3-6-month contract, it gets your foot in the door and unlocks access to permanent roles. You can also build up a record of wide experience quite quickly and then leverage your management background to potentially offer access to an HR Advisor role on a permanent basis.

Be patient. The market for jobs, right now, isn't great. And the competition for entry-level HR roles is high. That can mean that you have to wait for the right combination of circumstances that put you at the front of the queue as far as candidates go.

Any recommendations?

Lower your expectations. With no HR experience, despite your hospitality experience, you are unlikely to obtain a role with management or supervisory responsibility. This means that you are likely to need to take a pay cut to get your foot on the ladder. The entry point is either HR Assistant (mostly assisting HR Advisors, preparing case files, note taking in meetings, providing direct advice to employees on policy, holiday, sickness absence etc) or HR Administrator (maintaining personnel files, processing onboarding and inductions, updating training records, managing HRIS).

Be prepared to be mobile. The wider you are prepared to cast your net, in terms of commuting time, the more likely you are to secure a role by simple mathematics.

Go agency. Sign up to as many temp agencies as you can, including de facto agencies like your local authority's temporary staff register and the NHS Bank. Be clear that you are looking for work in HR. The advantage with temp work is that no one expects you to be there for very long, but it all adds to your CV so, once you can secure one job in HR, even on a 3-6-month contract, it gets your foot in the door and unlocks access to permanent roles. You can also build up a record of wide experience quite quickly and then leverage your management background to potentially offer access to an HR Advisor role on a permanent basis.

Be patient. The market for jobs, right now, isn't great. And the competition for entry-level HR roles is high. That can mean that you have to wait for the right combination of circumstances that put you at the front of the queue as far as candidates go.

Thank you Robey.